Jason Ellis

00:00Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. And today we're doing, you know what, I love departures. I love doing something just a little bit different from here and here and there. And we've got some great interviews coming up. Manit Shohan will be coming on the show here in the next week or so. Kara Graham from Lachlan Table is going to be coming on the show. And every single episode that I do, I talk about an on brand or we start the episode and we do an on brand with one of our sponsors because I'm so fascinated with some of these little individual details of the business.

01:02I love talking to Cytex about what's going on in the linen world. I love talking to No-See College of Art about the ins and outs of their culinary program. I think it's so neat. What chefs want? What are the chefs talking about right now? And one of my favorite on brands that I do is with Jason Ellis from Super Source, where one of my favorite phone calls that I do all week long is where I call Jason and I don't know why I'm so fascinated with the dish machine world, but I am. And I think it's one of those overlooked things. So today we're going to go super inside baseball. So if you're a restaurant person, if you're a restaurant manager, hopefully today is going to be a really interesting episode because as I'm talking to Jason Ellis and we're kind of outlining exactly what the on brand is going to look like, I said, you know what, man, we should do a full show. We should just do a full show. We get into the nuts and bolts of your world.

02:05We're getting towards the end of a pandemic. Maybe I should have done this at the beginning of a pandemic, but I just find it so super interesting. And it's one of those lines on a P&L and it's one of those, it's such a major heartbeat. The lifeblood of any kitchen is that dish room and really sanitation and cleanliness. And I just had so many questions. I thought, let's just bring Jason Ellis in today and let's just do like a full interview. So I called Jason, he said, yeah, dude, I'm in and I've got him right here, right now. And we're going to bring him in and just start this interview this way, Jason Ellis, what's going on, man? Hey, good morning, Brandon. How are you doing? I am fantastic. So you are the managing partner of SuperSource Nashville. I think my listeners are absolutely in tune with who you are. But if we have new listeners today, tell us a little bit about yourself. So I moved to Nashville about a year ago, right before the pandemic in January, right before everything hit with SuperSource Nashville.

03:11So I've been with SuperSource for going on three and a half years now. They gave me the opportunity last year to kind of branch out and have my own location. And so that's kind of why we moved up here. I've been into the industry going on, gosh, I think June will be 10 years. I've cut my teeth with a lot of the big million dollar, billion dollar companies. And then I went to work for a family business, family owned company, just because we wanted to build a different culture and do something completely different. And when they told me their model and what they wanted to do and bring to the industry, I was like, I'm in. This is great. I mean, it takes you back to customer service focus, service focus and not sell, sell, sell, sell, sell. We truly care about the customers first. Okay, so I love that. And one of the things about this episode, this is not a paid advertisement, right? This is not like a, well, you are an advertiser with me.

04:12Really, I sought you out because I was so impressed with what you were doing. This episode is, I want people to really get into the ins and outs of the dishware. I just want people to caveat like, this is not a paid ad. This is just, I want to share all the cool stuff that I talked about Jason with you. And you, so 10 years you've been in this, what did you do before this? I've done everything. When I was putting myself through college, raising a family, I was selling furniture. I sold cars. I've worked as an inventory control manager. I worked as in the parks department for an auto dealer. So I've done tons of different jobs. You're a hustler. I'm a hustler. Yeah. Yeah. And then I was in college and one of the big billion dollar chemical companies came and talked to us, talked to our sales program at the university. And I was like, man, this sounds awesome. And I worked for them for about five and a half years before I left and got scooped up by another multimillion dollar company at that time.

05:17Yeah. So it's been, it's been a whirlwind. I mean, I've got some great experience. So I find that those multi-billion dollars, the gigantic companies, they're really the prominent companies in town. Yeah. And the way that this thing works is like there's a need, right? So dish machines, chemicals, there's a need. It's why Cisco partners with one and, you know, U.S. foods has theirs, all the big companies have one. But tell me the niche, like, so when you were with these big companies and you left to go to SuperSource, what was like the main reason for that? Honestly, I like the fact that it put the customer first, first and foremost above anything else. So my mentor in the business went to SuperSource to help build a culture. And he called me up one day and he and I were talking very much like you and I have conversations and he was like, hey, I'm trying to do something here.

06:17I want to change this culture. He was like, I need somebody like you on my team. He's like, I need somebody to come and lead these guys. So I originally came on to SuperSource as a district manager in Atlanta. I had 12, I think by the time I left, I had 13 guys working for me. And so we were really trying to build and reshape the brand and build this culture for our team. The foundation was already set because the company had the model that they wanted. We just were trying to help implement it and help shape that. And so it was really, really good to be part of, if you will, the ground floor, coming in and really just really putting it to the street. But I've never met, been in a company where it's not been a sales organization, go, go, sell, sell, sell, sell. And it's kind of refreshing because I think a lot of our customers benefit so much more from what we do because we're not trying to say, hey, we got this new product, we got this thing, we got this thing.

07:19So you're, I'm not only a client, I'm also a customer, right? Right. I don't know, the old hair club for men adage. But you know, I love about what you said that you wanted to change the business and I jokingly call you the dentist. I call you doc because you really remind me of a dentist and it never understood to me like everywhere that you go, it's this alchemy side of things like you want, people want you to do things for reasons of manipulation and everything. And every time you go to the dentist, they always tell you like, hey, you need to floss. You need to do this. You need, and they're always trying to give you tips and things so that you don't need them. And I'm always like, shouldn't you give out snicker bars at the dentist? Because that's like how you build sales and I guess they're like, no, you need to come back anyway. Your teeth are going to like the let, we got plenty of work to do, I guess. I don't know how it works, but you remind me of that because you're just constantly trying to help in a genuine way.

08:23You're like, hey, look, I want to, I want to figure out a way that you need me less. And it seems like that's the opposite that most businesses do, which is something that drew me to you guys. I was like, this is different. It's kind of like creation gardens. What chefs want? When I first started with them, they said, we want to be the antithesis of the big boys. We want to hustle. We want to what chefs want. I mean, they will really their entire goal was to turn the industry on its head. And I just fell in love with that culture. And that seems like what you guys have there. Yeah, it really is. I mean, yes, we provide the weekly service. We provide the inventory control. I mean, I can't imagine how many chefs I've talked to now that we've been able to get here in Nashville that just love the fact that we're able to do all their inventory. And it's one less thing off their plate. I'll get asked, hey, do you do this? Do you do this? Yes. Yes, I can help with that. OK, great. That's one thing I got to worry about ordering. I mean, because they got a whole restaurant to run. So what we do is I mean, it really truly wants to help at the end of the day.

09:26That's my main goal is to help take that much off their plate because they've got so much else going on. I love that. Yes. I mean, I for the listener out there, I tell this side of the story because half the time I talk to Jason, I talk about frustrations between behaviors of restaurant managers and behaviors of people. And what I see with what you're doing and what you're doing with me is so damn good. And we talk about you going in to places with a genuine heart like, hey, look, let me figure this out. And I don't think a lot of people recognize how big of a line item on a P&L dish machine and dish machine lease is. And I want to so what I want to do with you today is I want to break down some of the stigma on anybody listening to go. Now, I understand how that world works. I think that nobody just jumps in and wants to go. I want to learn how the dish machine lease works. But I think it's so fascinating and I love to talk about the differentiators because one of the things is you can save a lot of people a lot of money and provide much better customer service.

10:34And it's almost a too good to be true kind of scenarios. People like, I don't know. I don't know about you and I don't know what you're doing. And you're like, this isn't a scam. Like, I can really do this. And it's it's it makes your job tough. Because the other guys are kind of effing it up so bad that you coming in doing what you do is like, I don't know if I trust you. I've worked with this guy for 20 years, but you're way too everything you're saying sounds way too good. And so I break some of that down because it is a thing and it can be frustrating for you to walk in somewhere and say, I'd love to do an audit for you. And then you've got a customer that's purchasing, you know, they're spending twelve hundred dollars a week. And you're like, well, I could do a brand new dish machine and all of your chemicals for seven hundred dollars a week. And they're like, no way. You're like, it's a thing. And then they call their company and go, hey, why are you five hundred dollars cheaper than they make up?

11:35Why? They do. It's a whole story. So I want to get into all of that because it's a fascinating, fascinating world to me. I love watching the how it's made television shows. This is kind of that world for me. It is. It is. Yeah. My daughters and I love watching how it's made just because it's just it's interesting. I mean, you get to learn a whole different industry. So, yeah, this will be really fun. How many daughters do you have? I've got two, two other there. Let's see here going to be twelve and ten on the twentieth. So they share the same birthday, ironically enough. So your daughters have the same birthday two years apart. They do. They do. Ironically, that I've never in my life heard of that. It's crazy because so my daughters have the same birthday two years apart. And then my wife's cousins are a year apart and they share the same birthday. And their birthday is on my wife and I is wedding anniversary. So it's what is your wife and yours and wedding anniversary? Six, seven, two thousand eight. So we made it easy so I could never forget. Six, seven, eight.

12:37That's it. It had to be on purpose, right? We did. Yeah, it was on purpose. It just so happened to fall on a weekend, too. So it was awesome. Six, seven, eight. Yeah, that's amazing. How old are you? I'm thirty four. Nice. I don't think I ever asked how old you were. How long have you been married? Six, seven, eight. So it'll be what? Going on 13 years. Yeah, going on 13 years. And we've been together for a little over 16 now. So kind of high school sweetheart. That's so cool. And so wholesome. Yeah, we didn't. The crazy thing is, is we're high school sweethearts. We didn't even know each other in high school. So it's crazy. We met through friends. Explain that. So Candace is a year older than me. And so she was a freshman in college when I was a senior in high school. And then it was, I guess, going into my senior year in high school. She was a lifeguard at my buddy's pool. And he's like, dude, you got to come over and go swimming.

13:38He was like, I want you to meet somebody. And we met and clicked. We didn't start dating at that time. It wasn't until probably the second semester of her college year in my high school year. We actually started dating. And then it's been great ever since. So that's a cool story, man. You don't hear a lot of those stories. No. And you guys are active. Your daughters are, is it gymnastics that they do? So my youngest does competition gymnastics. And my oldest is, she's playing soccer right now. She got recruited to play travel soccer, which if she wants to do that, that will start next year that she does cheer and dance and basketball. So my wife's running 100 miles an hour all the time. I'll bet. Yeah, that's a busy, it's a busy day. We're getting our kids into all that stuff now. And it's like, when they're five, like six and seven right now. But I mean, we're getting there. We're right on the cusp of that. Okay, let's talk dish machine stuff.

14:39I like talking about you though. Let's just say I'm opening a new restaurant. Okay, let's get into some work stuff. And I need to, I need a dish machine, right? Because obviously I need a dish machine. There's all kinds of different spaces in a restaurant, in a kitchen. Can you just, can you make custom machines? Can you go into a kitchen and see the size and the space? And like, or is there like a standard machine that everybody uses? How many different types of dishwashing machines are there? Honestly, there are tons. So one of the cool things about SuperSource is we've got ends with all of our vendors. So CMA, Jackson, ADS, Hobart. We've got so many different ones that we can get to. The main three that we use are CMA, ADS and Jackson. Just because for the customer standpoint, you get the best bang for your buck. With those machines, they're in their portfolios.

15:39They've got so many different styles that we can put in an application. We've been really able to get creative in any space to actually make a machine fit. So yeah, I mean, there's so many different operations. I've got some places that I've been into. We take a glass washer and we can put it under the cleaner soil cell table of their dish machine because they need that extra space to have glasses ran instead of putting another one at the bar. So it's really about getting super creative. I mean, we can do some really great things with them. What's the best type of dish machine out there? What's the one that's like, this one's pretty BA? What is it? It just depends. I mean, there's so many good ones, honestly. ADS makes some really great high temp machines. I personally really like the Jackson low temp machine, the Dump and Fill, just because of it looks great. It's very easy to work on. And I refer to it as like the Jeep of machines because it just runs. I mean, it just goes. The glass washers, we've got a couple Dump and Fill low temp glass washers that have heaters in them.

16:45Those are my absolute favorite because it works great to keep the water temperature high instead of just having cold water on your glasses all the time. And then the conveyors. It really depends upon what you're looking for in your application. I mean, honestly, there's so many good ones that just run and run and run. And it comes back to maintenance. If you properly maintain and take care of your machine, it's just like your car. If you don't change the oil in it, if you don't wash it, if you don't take care of it, it's going to break down. So that's the same application that goes to your machine. And that's where we spend. And how? So first of all, I would call it the Honda. Yeah, because it runs. I don't know if you've ever had a Jeep, but Jeeps break down all the time. I'll call it the Honda from now on, but that's just me. Well, if you look at the old Wranglers with the inline six, those run forever. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I got you. The YJ. Yes. Yes. Okay. Up until about 95, I think was the last year they made those. In 97, they started making the new Quadra coil.

17:46Anyhow, not to get nerdy on the Jeep side. I love Jeeps and nothing against Jeeps, but I really know who owns a Jeep is like, just shoot me. Yeah. So we can say it's like the Honda, the Honda. Those things will run. They'll run you in the ground for sure. Those things are great. So you've decided that, so you've got a restaurant. You're like, okay, I need, I want to call somebody. What are the big companies out there to call? Tell me who the competitors are. So our main competitors that we see is Autoclure and Ecolab are the two biggest ones in here. And then are there other small, are there other small companies that do it? I've seen a couple, but they're very far in view in between. They're very, very sporadic. So I haven't seen any consistency as far as somebody else. It's all over the place in the market. The main two that I'm seeing, or I guess now the main three is Autoclure, Ecolab and then Supersource. Very nice. Welcome into the big three. I like that. Trying to keep going.

18:50So one of the main differences between you guys, let's talk about some differentiators. When I, I'm a restaurant and I'm like, oh, okay, I want to, I want to buy a dish machine. I'm going to call Autoclure. I'm going to call Ecolab and I'm going to call you. Their typical style is, okay, we're going to give you a dish machine and then we're going to supply you with the chemicals for your dish machine. And if you don't know, every time that you run a dish machine, right? So you fill up this rack with all, you put all your dishes in, like you have a dish in your house. There's like the bottom rack and the top rack. Well, they'd have those for these dishes. They're just big pieces of plastic and you put the, you put all the dishes in there and then you just run it through the machine. That's considered a rack. Like you ran one rack. There's an actual counter on the side of the machine, right? Correct. Correct. So what a lot of companies will do is they'll come in and they'll say, we'll do, you know, how, how busy are you? And they'll say, how many racks do you typically run? And you'll say, I run a thousand racks a week and then go, okay, thousand racks a week.

19:52We're going to charge you seven cents per rack or six cents per rack or eight cents per rack, whatever it might be. But for a thousand racks a month, it's $600 a month, which is low because a lot of people do more than a thousand racks. Let's just math easy. They'll say, we'll give you the dish machine and all the chemicals for $600 a month. If you go over a thousand racks, we're going to charge you nine cents a rack, you know, but you pay for a thousand. And that that's accurate, right? That's one way to do it. That's one way to do it. That's primarily, um, on how, on how they do now, eco-labs method is different. They, they did have that type of flat fee at a time. I don't know if they're still doing it. I haven't ran into that in a while. How they do it is they leash you the machine and you buy the chemical from one of their food purveyors direct. A lot of times from what I'm seeing here in Nashville is they're shipping all their chemicals primarily through their food distributors.

20:54I'm not seeing too much direct ship anymore. It's all through a lot of food purveyors. Okay. So eco-lab will rent you the machine for X amount of dollars a month. And they say, buy your chemicals through your food vendor. Correct. Correct. And they will charge you establishes the pricing on that. Correct. The food vendor can establish the pricing on it. If the ship direct, uh, eco-lab will establish the pricing on it. The local rep will one difference with them is, is you have a minimum amount that you have to spend in regards on that machine. So for instance, like a single rack machine, when I was doing it for your whole operation, you had to spend a minimum of $125, which is not, it's not a huge thing. But if you have a slow one, like what we did with the shutdown, you may not hit $125. And if you don't hit that, they charge you that $125 anyways. Now you will get some places that will waive that or refund it back, but not all the time. Yeah. But I mean, it's, it's, you got, you have to watch it, right? Right, right. You have to babysit that.

21:55I mean, that's one of the things I think with everything you want, not that you want to babysit, but if you're a manager, you want to be on top of that stuff. You want to cause watch. I think that's so many of us just forget about the dish land. And I do. I'm one of those people that before I really started talking to you, I just, it's just back there. It's just a line item on the P and L. It's not something like food costs and like liquor costs. It's not one of my biggest controllables, but after talking to you and looking over it, I went, wow, there's, there's a lot involved there. So they ask you to rent the machine, buy your stuff through a food vendor who establishes a price structure, which could be good, could be bad based upon your purchases with them. I mean, if you're a small customer and you're on a higher tier of margin, then you're probably going to pay a higher amount for your chemicals too. And if you're a huge account that has a really good negotiated margin, you're probably going to get a better deal in your chemicals. So again, it's hurting the little guy because you're really now beholden to your food vendor. And I'm not saying food vendors are bad, but it's just, it presents more of a challenge.

22:58And do each, so the food vendors, do they have their own like partnerships? Are they all with eco lab or is there, do they, a lot of them are. You've got some other ones. So when we're talking about the competitors, you know, Gordon foods, they've got their own chemical line and their own company that they have for their dish stuff. PFG's got the same thing. They've got their own chemical line in their own dish service. Then you've got like us foods, us foods uses eco lab. A lot of their chemicals are repackaged as eco lab chemicals. Cisco, the Cisco brand, the keystone, the reliance, all that stuff is manufactured by eco lab. Keystone is the private label of eco lab and reliance is basically, I don't want to say it's a lesser version, but it's kind of a lower quality, a lower diluted version of the main line of eco lab. So it's, they make reliance brand.

23:59It's the value brand for Cisco. What's the best thing about eco lab? Tell me something really great that they do that's impressive. They hired me originally. Oh, I love it. So no, let's see here. What I would say that they do really, really well is they do really good marketing and they've got their name out there really, really big and people know eco lab. And that's why when you see hotels or restaurants or something, say, hey, we use eco lab. Other people that aren't in the industry somehow know about it. So they do really, really good at marketing themselves, but they've also, it's built into your price. I mean, when you look at the chemicals, that's, they've got a huge marketing budget. What about autocorps? Say something nice about autocorps. I will say in Nashville, a lot of their reps seem to be doing a great job. As far as to just from everything I've heard, people seem to have a really good relationship with the reps, which is fantastic.

25:06I hope all my customers say the exact same thing about me. Yeah, there you go. Okay. What I'll bet you're going to be like, their name starts with an A and the A is the first letter in the alphabet. So they got that going for him. You know, I'm always one, you know, when people ask me who my competitors are, I really don't think of I have any competitors because what we do is so unique and so different from autocorps and eco lab. I don't have a competitor in that realm, but I'll never say, tell us what you're so unique. Tell us about that. So obviously, like we're talking about the dish machines, we don't have contracts. So when people are saying, okay, you know, it's too good to be true. We have nothing to lose because we don't have a contract. So at the very least, it's a little bit of time lost. It's a pulled plug and complete plug and play. We do all the labor. We'll even call the company to come and pick up their equipment for you. So you don't have to worry about that. Our pricing's there. It's weekly service, not bi-weekly, not monthly, not quarterly.

26:08We help with inventory management and we really put the service back in customer service. All my customers have my direct cell number. So if they have to get in touch with me, they call me directly. It's not, okay, let's call the 1-800 number or let's call the local office number and see if we can get somebody out here trying to chase them around. I mean, I actually had a chef ask me, hey, I'm not going to mention the competitor, but do you know if they're closed? Are they closed right now? Because I can't get ahold of anybody. I'm having an issue and I can't get ahold of anybody. So I don't ever want to be it that way. I want always, I want people to be very accessible to me just so that they can feel like they're taking care of 100% and they're not having to wait. So no contract on the dish machine. So what you're telling people is, buy your dish machine from me, change it out. So somebody's in a contract or they're, wait, identify first of all, where you're at with the contract. Right. And you'll rent them a dish machine. So it's really a, I think a lot of people fear like, well, if I get that dish machine out of here, then they'll never come back.

27:12And I'm like, well, if you, they will, first of all, if you try them out and you put a dish machine in and you're not going to charge, you're not going to sign anything, right? So everybody comes in and they say, I need you to sign a five-year contract saying you're going to buy from me for five years. And then I'll give you that. They use this guys of you commit to me and I'll give you the good deal and what you guys are saying is, I'm not going to make you do that at all. You can, we'll bring a dish machine in. If you go to nashvillerestaurantradio.com and you look up SuperSource, you can get three free months of dishwasher. So you're, you are telling me, so you try the dishwasher, you give them three months for free. And after that, it's a month to month kind of a thing. Like if you don't like it, you don't like any of the stuff, you just call when your old company is back and say, hey, bring me a new dish machine. Let's sign a new deal. I'm going to commit to somebody else for five years. But I mean, like you can come in and you have to earn it every week, right?

28:13Every week, every week. I mean, and that's the thing too. Yeah, every day, every day I go in there. If you call me, it's I'm on the clock. I'm trying to make sure I keep entering your business. But yeah, it goes back to it. Signing a contract, that's my biggest thing. We're working for the companies. At least if you're going to sign a contract, make sure that there's a way to get out. I've seen so many contracts where you're not able to get out of it and they'll take you to court and make you pay the remainder of the contract. And I don't agree with that because again, that's been my biggest ploy to restaurant tours is listen, you're not guaranteed your customers are coming back every day, right? You have to be on your game every time that somebody steps foot in the door to get them to come back and eat at your establishment. And that's the way that we want to do business. We want to make sure we're on our game every single day. There's a reason why somebody's signing you and locking you into a contract because there's something to hide there. You know, I don't get it. I don't get it. Well, I think the idea of a contract is they can guarantee it.

29:14These are public companies, you know? And when I lock you into a five-year deal, A, I now have you for five years and I can tell my investors that I can count on that sales for five years. Typically, there can be I'm a fan of that when it comes to food companies, creating an MDA, but really negotiate. You have to know what a great deal is for your company. And a lot of times when you get that good of a deal, the service goes away. So if you offer if you they give you the best deal, they go, well, then I can't pay somebody to come out there and do that. But you guys are like, no, it's cool that that's the differentiators that we're still going to bring you that level of service. So one thing that I do, you mentioned you made a great comment. Make sure that the language in the contract states that you can get out of it. One of the things that they do is they write in these contracts, they write that you have you have to submit in writing to the VP of sales or president of the company that you're unhappy with whatever it is. And then from there, you have to submit it in certified mail.

30:14You'll see this in a lot of contracts. You have to submit in writing by certified mail what your grievance is with the company. And then they have 30 days to create satisfaction in the manner. To their liking, to their to their approval. You can change that contract language to my approval. You can say, I don't want to write a certified letter. I want to write an email and it needs to be fixed to my satisfaction, not your satisfaction, because it just is that one little word in the language that says where they go, oh, no, you just write us a letter. Then we have to fix it or else you can get out. And it's like, well, you have to fix it to their satisfaction, not your satisfaction. And they can claim anything they want in a court of law. It's a kind of a weird language that they use that you guys don't have any of that. So it doesn't matter. Right, right. Yeah. The only thing that we provide to all of our clients and as you're aware of is just a machine agreement. And we have to have that for legal purposes for being in your building and coming off of our books.

31:18But that that's it. Yeah. Well, and to go back to because we were talking about the different differentiators. So industry average for the dish machine to run a rack of dishes is four and a half to five and a half cents. So if you're paying over that, find out the reason why. They should be completely open with you on why you're paying seven, eight cents per rack. Because the industry average is four and a half to five and a half cents. And when I was doing it, when we first got started, it costs you about 50 cents, including water, labor, electricity, chemicals, the whole gamut to run one rack of dishes, which is why when we do the training, we tell people if you have pots, pans, stuff like that, that you can do in your three compartment sink, wash it there because it's more economical for you to do it there and use those chemicals that to run it through the dish machine. Or if you're running one spoon through the dish machine, it's costing the same to run one spoon as does a plate of dishes.

32:18So again, we take it back to a full training aspect and explain this to our customers so they know the difference between the two different things. See, this is the dentist in you. See, this is the thing that I thought was so cool is that you actually came in and you brought the staff together and you said, hey, one of our big problems that we had was that we were using the wrong chemicals for the wrong things. We're using five times the amount of degreaser that we needed to use, way over using a concentrate to clean the grill or whatever. We're using the wrong thing to clean the floor and the wrong thing to like, the wrong sanitizer. Everything was just like, nobody knew. There wasn't like a really good plan. And now I feel so confident. Last night I'm cleaning tables and I have this really nice spray bottle that says QUAT sanitizer and it has all of the information. The material safety data sheets are right. There's a QR code. Like everything was right at my fingertips. But I knew what I was doing. There's a confidence I have as somebody who runs a restaurant knowing that everything is labeled, that people are using the right chemicals for the right projects.

33:20Because that's a major issue with a lot of restaurants is that they're just using the wrong chemicals to do the wrong things. You can come in and identify what are you using? Why are you using it? And if people use the right chemicals for the right things, they can use a lot less chemicals. Am I correct? That's 100%. Yeah, I mean, if you use the right application, you can definitely use a lot less chemicals because there's other chemicals that are going to do it that are going to have a much better yield than going straight to the strongest chemical. And a lot of people think more, you know, if I've got this much chemical and it's doing a great job, I use this much chemical and it's going to do a better job. In most cases, it's not that it's not true. There's a reason why there's a formulation and recommended specification for that because it's going to clean and the surfactants and caustics are going to do its job at this level, not this level. This level is going to leave a residue and you're going to have more issues. So I mean, that's a major thing right there. Just understand it's like portion sizes.

34:20You know, it's like if somebody has mashed potatoes and you're supposed to put four ounces of mashed potatoes on a plate, but every time they go, no, let's put eight. Eight looks better. You go, why are we just throwing away? And every time they go to the dish machine, they're throwing away half those mashed potatoes. Like you're just throwing profits in the trash can. And every time that you do four times the amount of chemicals you need, like no, that chemical is made to use this much chemical. It will work. You're just throwing it away. So I mean, educating your staff on that is such a major. I mean, that's one of those things. This is what I'm talking about. Like that's one of those major things that a lot of people just go with their daily life. It's just a chemical, but like, no, like focus on that. And not only does it save money, but it will work better. You know, using the right stuff for the right things. Well, I think a lot of people too, when you look at that line item on your P&L for chemicals, dish machines, all that stuff, you think of it as just an uncontrollable. It's, you know, it's the cost of doing business. A lot of people think, and they don't realize that, hey, yeah, we can fix that.

35:23We can control that. We can make that better. You know, we can do an audit. We can do executive review to make sure we're in line with where we need to be. And I think a lot of people forget that, yeah, you can control chemicals, but some people, their thought of controlling chemicals is just not getting them or just not ordering them. And I've seen that at some places too. That's another big thing. Another cool thing I think that you do or that you've done, and you talked to one of our dishwashers, you know, you recognized ahead of time that we had, you were using too much of the, I don't know what it was, the chemical in the dish machine. There was a chemical in the dish machine. You recognized that we were using too much of it and you proactively came in and talked to Donnie. Donnie's our dishwasher, who's the man. You came in and talked to Don and you said, hey, I've noticed that you're using too much of the sanitizer or rinse aid or whatever it is. I think it was the dish detergent. Dish detergent, okay.

36:24And you got in there and you talked to him and you said, hey, what are you, let me see the process of what you're doing. And you recognized that while spraying down the front of the dishes, the back of the dishes that had a piece of lettuce or something on them weren't getting sprayed down the best way. And then he's putting them in the dishwasher and then those lettuce leaves are going to the bottom. And what happens in that scenario? So what happens is, if you don't clean the dishes properly, spray scrap properly or even change the water properly, all that food soil that's going to be in the machine, the grease, the grime, all that stuff, the detergent starts to break down that and it breaks down the detergent. And so the machine will call for more detergent and more detergent and more detergent. So like I always say, it's the same with your glassware. Put good in, get good out. To get your good results, make sure your machine's clean. Make sure that your plates are clean. Your wares are pre-scrapped properly. Change the water out regularly. A lot of people think, oh, if I change the water too frequently, I'm going to go through more product.

37:26That's not really the case. If you change your water out, the recommendation is every two hours, you're going to get much better results. The quality of your wares are going to come out looking great. And honestly, you're probably going to use less chemical in the long run because you're not making soup in the dish machine. I mean, that's a big thing right there. And you're putting out a better cleaner product for your guest. So I mean, that's such a cool, that's like the differentiator to me is that you recognize, hey, normally you guys buy X amount. The number has gone up over here. You go talk to the dishwasher. You find out what's going on. You recognize that he could be cleaning the dishes better on the front end. And the guy's amazing, but like, how do you know these things? Because everything works fine, but you recognize it and go in and go, hey, I noticed that's the dentist thing. Like, hey, I want you to be healthy. I want you to need me less. Where most people will go, no, man, don't spray it off that much. Just fill the machine up all the time and make the machine eat all of that lettuce. But you found it. Then you called me and said, hey, I recognize you guys are using too much the dish detergent.

38:31And I talked to Don, this is what's going on. We're all good there. Let's check it again in a week and see if that doesn't correct it. And by golly, next week, I was like, hey, look, it's back down. And you're like, cool, good. That's where we need to be. But I'm like, that's, you know, I had it. We used another company throughout the pandemic and, you know, they were charging us. That's the thing, you know, we do 10,000 racks a month. So 5,000 racks every two weeks. We were doing 2,200 racks, you know, during the pandemic because we were just doing to-go. And one of the restaurants was completely closed. We got charged the full 10,000 racks, you know. That's crazy. At 6.9 cents per rack for 1,000 racks. We're doing 2,000 racks. So I'm like, dude, what are we? There's 7,500 racks we're being charged for that we're not using. And I had to call the guy and I said, like, what's going on here?

39:32And he goes, well, you know, that's your problem, man. Like, did you get a PPP loan? I was like, did I get what? I mean, it was just a whole thing. I was like, oh my gosh, like, there's no, there's the opposite of what you did in that situation. So those are things that I see on like a daily basis that I'm like, this dude right here is so legit. I don't even know what to do. And I just, I appreciate that so much. Yeah, I mean, that's been my major goal. Like we said, my true goal is to help people, literally to help people. I want to help you save money. I want to provide you with a better quality of service. But even after we're partners, like, in that instance, I'm still looking for other ways to help you save money, which, I mean, like you said, most companies are like, hey, yeah, just go ahead and do that. You know, it's more money in my pocket. I'm not looking to do that because my thought of processes and the company's thought of process is, is if we do it right from day one and we continuously do it right, we'll never ever have to worry about losing a customer.

40:34Our customer retention rate is so high. You know, customer acquisition costs are extremely expensive when you have to go and acquire a new customer. When you look at time and labor to go and do everything and trials and product demos, if we just do right by the customer the first time, we don't ever have to worry about losing them. And then trying to go get that customer back later on or sacrifice our price. So that's why our prices are where they need to be and we're focused on customer satisfaction and service. – So pricing, you mentioned that Ecolabs creates product and they sell their product to Cisco and it's called the Reliance brand. They rebranded to their packaging. AutoClara has their own product. Where do you guys buy your product from? – We actually manufacture our own products. We've got four massive chemical tanks in Kennesaw, Georgia is where we manufacture out of and then they ship to all the distributors from… because we've got distributor locations all the way from Maryland, down the East Coast, Tennessee, out to Houston, all the way down to Tampa, Florida.

41:41– So there's no middleman. Like you guys… – There's not. – Super source makes the chemicals and they go directly to you. There's not some manufacturing facility in Norwalk, California that creates this product that sells it to another warehouse that then sells it to you and then you sell it to somebody else. There's not even the one markup that you get is to the customer. So you manufacture it and it goes straight to the customer. – It goes straight to the customer, exactly. – I think that's a pretty good answer to the question. How are you able to sell your product less expensive, right? – Yeah, I mean, because we don't have the markup, we don't have the overhead, and then it goes back to charging a fair price for the chemicals and being in line from the get-go so we don't have to worry about going back and getting that customer. I was at a place the other day and I saw their invoice. They gave me a copy of their invoice for their chemicals and they were paying for four one gallons of rinse aid, $300 for a case, which is about one and a half to two times as much as what mine is when you look at it per gallon.

42:53So, I mean, I'm looking at maybe a gallon is $25, $30 a gallon. So, I mean, the margins are huge, but that's where we don't pay for all the additional marketing. We don't pay for all the additional craziness that they pay for. We just do it right. – And the last people go, will you market with Nashville Restaurant Radio? I'm pretty cheap, folks. I really used to handshake a Coke and a smile and we got a deal. Thank you, obviously. We love having you. Maybe this has been an infomercial because it's not something that, like I said, you're paying me to do. I just, I'm really genuinely fascinated. It's like Creation Guards when we first started, they brought me in and they said, seriously, just take care of the chef. Do things everything differently. Service the hell out of them. We don't want to be like any of the other big guys. We want to really change the game. And when I really learned about what you guys were doing and then I felt it, got to see it and do it, I went, oh, wow, how do I, I want to partner with these people.

43:59I want to do this. And I think that recommendations and references are some of the most powerful things people can offer because you talked about that sales process. You got to go in with somebody. You've got to explain the differentiator. You've got to do, you got to do the whole thing. And then somebody who's very smart, who's been in the business a long time makes a decision and they decide to go with you. Who are some of the people in town right now that you're working with? Name drop for me. Give me a list of your clients that you can't, I know you're going to forget people, but like on the top of your head, who you working with? Oh, you and your establishments, of course. Brandon still, Green Hills girl in Marable. So we're very fortunate with that. We've worked with Matt Bolas and Chef Sam over at the 404. Fantastic team. That was one of our first clients that we also picked up in Nashville. We work with Adele's, ME Squared and Green Hills as well. Nick and Audrey Guidry over at Pelican and the Pig. They're some of my favorite people, awesome couple.

45:01We work with all the Barista parlors, Chopper Tiki, Diskin Cider, Cilantro right there in East Nashville. We work with Crazy Gnome Brewing. You go out to Franklin, we've got Franklin Bake House, the new Italian restaurant Colicino. Let's see here, what else? We work with Lost Cajun who has a location here in Mountain Juliet as well as in Hendersonville. St. Stephen, yeah, St. Stephen and Chairman Town. Barista Parlor over there, Optimus, Oak Hoo, Oak. So we've got a lot and I know I'm missing some people. If you've heard any of those restaurants you just now heard, if you respect the people that lead those restaurants, they made the decision to use you guys for a reason. Give them a call. If you have a question about this whole thing, give them a call and find out about it because one of our goals here on Nashville Restaurant Radio is to inform restaurant people of really cool stuff that's going on and when you have something as cool as you're doing, I just get excited because I'm like, guys, there's so many people that are being overcharged right now and the service is good in a lot of circumstances.

46:20You said AutoClar is great with their service and I have had good experiences with AutoClar service, their rep, they are very responsive. Machines break down a lot but they're very responsive. But there's another way to do it. Part of it is just standing on a rooftop and shouting it out and I wanted to break down today, just get into a little more detail as to, hey, look, this guy is legit. Let's learn about him. He lives here in Mount Julie. He's got a wife and two daughters who are in gymnastics and he goes out. I love watching your Facebook feed of all the places you guys go out and eat. You're just a genuine guy who wants to get out there and do a really good job for his people and you live it every day with me and if I ran any company in town, if I could steal you, I would do it in a heartbeat but I know you're so passionate about what you do and who you are that that's never going to be a possibility but if you're a restaurant and you're out there and you just, if you're using one of these big companies and you look down at your bill and you go, oh shit, I'm paying seven cents or eight cents a rack, give Jason a call.

47:28He'll come in, look at everything, see what you're using, do an audit, identify what you need, give you an estimate, come in, he'll do staff trainings for your team, he'll identify what you're using, he'll do the whole program. He will put a program in place for your dish machine and chemical use and it works. All of your spray bottles come already with the labels on them. You'll replace them all the time. We just come in, hey, we need more spray bottles. We got them. Guy's the best. There you go. It's not a gimmick. No, it's, I'm saying like, it's hard to do a show like this because I'm like, I just get, I'm genuinely excited about what you guys do and it sounds like, man, how much are you? This guy's really drank the Kool-Aid and it's like, I have and I want to share this with other people because it sounds too good to be true but it is legit. It is an actual thing. So it does. I mean, when I did the proposals and people see, I had one they saw we're going to save $900 a month and I had another one that they would save on average about $1,100 a month.

48:30I mean, when you see those type of numbers, you're like, there's no way. There's no way. How am I going to save that much money? But it's true. When you actually sit down and break down the nuts and bolts, you're going to, it's true. All right. Final question. Just getting that opportunity. Sure. Final question before your final thought. I know you're a listener too. You get to have your very own final. You get to take us out here in a minute. Have you been thinking about what you're going to say? Honestly, I haven't. I haven't, but I kind of got some ideas. Okay. Well, well now you are. For what? Oh gosh. What was my question going to be for you? Contracts, right? So if you're going in somewhere, we just mentioned you go and you do an audit and you go, holy shit, you're paying $900 too much to right now. And they go, yeah, dude, I'm getting raked over the calls, but I just, I got two more years left in my contract. What, what do we, what do you do? Do you get around that? What is the best way to get out of a contract?

49:32What do you do in that scenario? Do you just go, oh, well, call me in two years after you've paid, what is 900 times 24? I mean, after you pay $18,000, $20,000 too much in the next two years, like, nobody wants to do that. No. How do you, how do you do that? So it honestly depends upon which company it is. There is one of the competitors that you do have an opportunity to get out of their contract, which is very fortunate for us and for the customer. And you just have to usually submit a 60, 90 day letter stating, hey, we're going to leave you or they'll just make you pay that 60, 90 days at the end, which if they do, we'll work that into our agreement with the customer. I can negotiate that with you. Yeah, I'm all about helping the customer. So we'll work in looking at how we can help with that. With the other one, the contract with the other company that locks you in that may have two or three years left on your contract, it's just for the dish machine.

50:36So going in, what I've done with some of my other clients is we take everything else, all the other general cleaner chemicals and everything except for the dish machine and we really help them save there. I've even had an instance where we got extremely creative and we figured out, okay, I'm spending this much money because my rack over just this. And in Atlanta, we got extremely creative and we put in a secondary machine for the customer to help eliminate those overages. And then they were just paying us and it saved them overall on that end because we were fortunate we had the room to put a secondary machine and do that. The other company was not happy but it definitely saved them a lot more money. It seems like it'd be kind of counterproductive if you're paying two separate companies but when we had everything else in there, we were able to do that and help them save further than the other bill. So we get really creative in trying to help our customers but yeah, if they lock you in, it's just for the dish machine. It's not for the other general cleaner chemicals and typically we can help you save there.

51:38So one of the, there's a third option. The third option is not, I don't know if you want me to mention what my brain goes to with the third option is but you're giving people, now you have knowledge, right? So if you are still two years left in and you recognize what you could be getting the exact same product for a lot less expensive, you can take that back to them and try and renegotiate it. Kind of go back and go, hey look, I'm here two more years. I am going to raise every bit of hell I possibly can unless you get me back to this price. You can try to do that and I think that for you, I don't know if you want me to mention that but I mean for the most part like you're in it genuinely like your heart is in it to help the customer help the customer get a better deal and help them succeed. If that means I don't earn your business but I was able to open your eyes to what the really the market value is and what's out there and you can take that back to your current dish machine company or chemical company and you can get a better deal, then that also feels like a win to you.

52:47Yeah, yeah, I mean that's at the end of the day if you can go and renegotiate your contract to get a better deal, hey if you can use me to help you save money, I'm happy about that as well because at the end of the day I'm about helping clients, helping Nashville, helping restaurant tours. So would I love to earn your business? Yes, but at the end of the day if you're saving money and you can keep your doors open and keep your staff employed, I'm thankful that you're able to do that. So yeah, I'm happy to help any way I can. So this is on this is on record now. I'm going to put this out immediately so that if anything happens to you, we know to follow the competitors like do you keep doing this? Right, right, yeah. We got to keep you safe. So all right, I think that we have done a healthy job. I feel like I've learned a bit more about you. I think we've done a hell of an on-brand here for SuperSource and I appreciate it in chemical company. Jason knows, how do people get a hold of you?

53:48I love what you're hearing. How do I get a hold of you? What's your phone number? How does it work or what do they do? The best way to get a hold of me is just calling me directly on my cell, shooting me a text, an email, whatever. So my cell number is 770-337-1143. So everybody has it till marketers have it. I keep getting calls about student loans. So or my car warranties ran out. But yes, please call me. Text me. I'm happy to help. Your number again? 770-337-1143. All right. I have it on the ticker now. The bottom of the screen, Jason Ellis, Managing Manager of SuperSource Nashville. Call him now. 770-337-1143 or you can go to NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com. Click the Sponsors tab and you can visit the website for SuperSource where they can offer three months of free distance.

54:51If you get this thing started, he's so confident. He's saying, I will give you the dish machine for three months for free. After three months, if I don't want that dish machine, you can get rid of it. Yeah. Try it out for three months. See if there's no strings attached. No strings attached. Just see what we're all saying. And if you're not happy, then we'll come pick it up. I'll take my toys and go home. That's amazing. I'm going to put you on the spot. Do you mind if I put you on the spot? Go for it, man. If you're listening to this episode right now, and one thing that you've done, you've told me that you've had a couple of, I've had a couple of guests on the show and you said, hey, tell that person if they want to sign up, I'll give them a deal on their first order. So right now on this show, will you offer anybody? What day is today? Today is the 11th, Sunday the 10th, Saturday the 10th. This is going to come out Sunday afternoon. I'm putting on YouTube, put YouTube today.

55:53Nice. If you call Jason Ellis in the next week, how about by the 18th, by Saturday or Sunday the 18th? What kind of a deal can you give them on their first, because you have to buy all the chemicals. There's a big, the initial first order is the big order, right? Yeah, it's because we're bringing everything in. So yeah, that's typically your big order. Can you give them a deal? People that call you in the next week and say, hey, I heard you on Nashville Restaurant Radio. I want you to come down and do an audit for me. I want you to just check it out, see what I got. They end up buying from you. Can you give them a deal on their first order? Yeah, yeah, I will. So if, if somebody calls before the 18th and says, hey, let's, let's do this. Let's do an audit. Let's get the vault rolling. What can we do? I will give you the three months free on your dish machine lease to help offset the cost. And I'll give you 15% off your initial order. Oh, damn. I thought you were going to say 15%. All right. I'll give you 15%. It's only till the 18th.

56:54So you got to hurry. Okay, I got you. Okay. So in the next week, you got to call him. I'll put this out of immediately on YouTube. So if you're a YouTube subscriber, you're going to see this early and hit his schedule so he can get you on the books to do this. Jason Ellis, this has been so much fun talking to you today. Now is your moment. We are going to ask every guest to take us out with Jerry's final thought. Floor is yours, sir. I appreciate it, Brandon. Thank you for having me. It's been a lot of fun this morning. I really appreciate it. I appreciate our partnership. I appreciate how welcoming and how hospitable Nashville has been. It's not like any other place I've lived. It's been great for my family and I. The pandemic was one of those crazy things that threw a loop in everybody's, you know, threw a wrench in everybody's pipe, but I think we're all coming out stronger. I really appreciate the opportunities that we were given by a lot of our current partners and customers.

57:58I think a lot of this stuff, you know, and everything happens for a reason. And I'm glad that we're starting to see business come back to Nashville. Everybody needs to just continue to be safe, continue to wash your hands, continue to wear your masks, to do what we need to do to be safe. And just support local. That's 100% of the thing. That's the theme that everybody's been saying. Support your local restaurants, support your local businesses, and support the employees there, because that's what helps make Nashville great. It's all the people in and around Nashville. And we've got to experience that firsthand and be on the receiving end for that. So we're truly, truly grateful from the bottom of my heart. And just thank you to Nashville and the whole hospitality community. It's been fantastic. And we look forward to growing and being able to do that. Being here for many, many, many, many more years. And like you said, taking over Nashville. You know, I don't typically do table talk or talk back when people do their final thoughts. But there's so many people that have moved here from out of town.

59:01And there's like two choices. One is you can be here and you're like, I live in Nashville, but I'm from Jersey, right? And you go into like your whole thing. Like you're one of those people who's moved here and like dove in headfirst into the deep end of the Nashville culture. You're like, I'm one of them now. Like I am a Nashvilleian. I support local. I'm eating local places all the time. Like you've just jumped right in. And I will take a million more of you if you guys want to move to town. I love it. Thank you so much for taking your time today. Mr. Jason Ellis, have a wonderful, wonderful rest of the day. You as well, sir. Thanks so much. All right. All right, everybody. There was Jason Ellis from SuperSource. That guy, he's one of my favorite people. I'm not kidding. I call him all the time. He's just one of my favorite people. Everything he does is absolutely legitimate. And I'm so excited to have him on the show today. Thank you all for listening. Please follow us on all of our social medias.

01:00:04I'm at Brandon underscore NRR, which is right there on the screen. Join our book club. Go to YouTube and subscribe. We want you guys to go to YouTube and subscribe. We got like a hundred videos up there of all these interviews. If you want to actually see them, all of our chefs reading one-star reviews. We have a TikTok page. We got all kinds of stuff. Follow us. Go visit us at our website. Go buy a hat. Buy a shirt. I would love to have you guys going around spreading the Nashville Restaurant Radio. Love. They're cheap. They're on sale. Twenty bucks. Help me out. Help out everybody. We love you. I hope that you are being safe out there. Love you guys. Bye.