 I'm Mellie James host of Let's Mana Up. This show is meant to dive into stories of local product entrepreneurs and how they're growing their companies from right here in Hawaii. My guest today is local celebrity chef, Adam Tabora, founder of Manelli Spice Company. Welcome to the show, Adam. Thank you, Mellie. Thank you for having me. Good morning. Good morning. So why don't we have you start off by sharing your story. How did you get started? Well, it all started off in a beach over in Lanain, Manelli Bay, where I grew up. I was about 17 years old, about four days after high school, I found a man faced down drowning and had the opportunity to fish him out of the ocean, get him back to normal, I want to say, send him off in the ambulance and that day just changed my life. You were just hanging out at Manelli Bay. Yeah. That's kind of the main hub, right? It's kind of like one of the nicer beaches on the bay, on the island, someplace where I grew up with our family and friends hanging out, literally four days after high school, just hanging out with my friends, not knowing what we're going to do. Okay. And so you brought this man back to the beach, resuscitated him? I brought him back. His name was Del Proctor. His wife Margaret was there and some of their friends from the mainland. And after getting him into the ambulance and going back into my little gathering, weeks later, Del Proctor came looking for me through my mother on Lanain, which her phone number's still the same. Yeah. At Lanain, my mom answered the phone and got his call from a random gentleman named Del Proctor and told him the story, which I never told my mother, so I was kind of shocking for her to hear. And from there on, he offered me the opportunity to go to culinary school. As I wasn't sure what I was going to do, I was going to be either a lifeguard, a fisherman or go to culinary school. And I decided to take on the challenge of moving away from the state and taking on that big educational leap of getting my career going with culinary. So I heard that he asked you what your dream was and you said you want to be a chef. Yeah. And as you just wanted to thank you. Yeah, actually, he asked me what I was going to do with my life and I said, you know, I wasn't sure yet, but I really wanted to become a chef at some point because growing up in Hawaii, we had natural disabilities to hunt, gather, dive, butcher, cut, farm and all that fun stuff. So as I mentioned to him, I want to go to culinary school, he asked me rare and I kind of shot far off this grid and I picked Portland, Oregon and I went there because I knew nobody and I wanted to start my life where I could just focus on school and he actually was kind enough to pay for my culinary school. Wow, that's incredible. So he paid for your culinary degree which really got your start in culinary and you've had such an illustrious career with so many opportunities and being a local boy from Lina'i and being on Food Network and you share kind of how that all came to be and other parts of that journey. That was a fun part of it. You know, it came 20 years later but for 20 years I've been in resorts, some great resorts around Hawaii and some restaurants and I was groomed by some really good people that kind of watched me grow to the business and the reward back was to actually keep going and persevere to that hardship of becoming a chef in the resorts and there's only a few jobs like that here in Hawaii and I found my way to the top and once we got to that point, I wanted to open up my own company and prior to that, we had an opportunity to meet my brother and my friend Sean to go on the great food truck race on the Food Network. What season was that? That was season four. I think we have some images to share that whole fun experience for you. So that's your brother, Lina'i. My brother Lina'i to the left, good friend Sean in the middle, our driver of the truck and of course myself and that's about some years behind now but it made great memories for us and great opportunities as well. So, okay, so you guys won season four. How do you think you won? You know, I think we won because we didn't go in having one specific plate or item like some people chose sandwiches and hot dogs and tacos, we chose aloha plate and we figured anything we put on a plate with aloha would work and we kind of stumbled in the first couple of cities because we didn't understand the game at all and then once we kind of caught on the game after Beverly Hills, me, my brother and Sean put our heads together and we went coconut wireless so we started calling any or every Polynesian or Hawaiian or anyone related to Hawaii. From people that I went to college with 20 years ago, I reached out to them and slowly we started to build our following and that's how I think it started. Wow. Okay, so you won and what happened? What did you win? So we as a team won $50,000 cash. We won a food truck which we didn't have, never have. People thought we had a food truck. No one had a food truck in that season. They kind of gave us a beaten up truck that they fixed up and we won ours and it's back in Hawaii now and things just started blowing up when we got home. So after you won that and kind of what was the next? Next big step and obviously now you've had your culinary degree, you've had some great positions at different hotels on Maui and Oahu. Now you won the great food truck race. What happened next? So what happened was we sat back, we tried to run, we ran the truck in some major events like Coachella, LA Food Festival, we got invited to all these great things. Spam International picked us up, 7-Eleven picked us up. We started to get picked up, we had some really good brands, collaborating, representing and then finally at one point in the game I needed to go back and be Adam Tobur in the kitchen and my brother and Sean of course, they're busy guys with their careers so everyone kind of went scattering back to their safety zone I want to say and I went back to mine because that's where I felt my passion was lied. I was living and I came up with this idea of creating a spice blend and I was running a whole sale for about seven or eight years and it did okay and then I kind of wanted to venture off to retail and I knew that getting into retail I knew nothing about so I needed to find some really good help, you know. So where did you find that help? I found the help through great friends and mana up. So I know that you had the spice company for a long time, like you were saying mostly in wholesale, servicing a lot of the great chefs that you've become friends with, well respected, who also respect to you and then wanting to get more into direct to consumer and did a real rebrand and so what did you name the company and why? You know, renaming the company was always something I wanted to do because in retail I needed to have a good brand, I needed to pop, I needed to make noise, I'd have to have a really good story. The spice rack, wholesale side of it, was just a company that serviced other restaurants. It wasn't really a standalone brand so what I did was I met up with my friends at Manaup and they helped me rebrand Manelli Spice Company which originated from Manelli Bay where the story all falls back and stems back to the El Proctor. So it's really paying homage to your start in culinary? Absolutely, it always goes back to the roots. Yeah. So let's talk about the different inspirations for each of your five flavors so far and I know you've got more coming out soon and we're gonna be having a launch at Foodland very shortly too. Exciting, exciting. So yeah, walk us through some of the flavors. So every five skews and one of the flavors that I wanna talk about first is the Upcountry Chili Pepper Salt and this was created because of growing up in Lena I always talked about putting that one blend into one bottle so I created five of them and this specific one, the chili pepper blend I used for my poke, my raw fish and anything I want spicy even on just some plain vegetables they work really well but this is for my grandfather, you know. He taught me how to harvest and cook. What's that? I'll call. This one is the Upcountry Chili Pepper Salt, yeah. So that's the ground foot, that's ground foot salt. My next salt is my emu salt, it's a backyard emu, this one's real fun, really smoky, these are all natural salts what we basically do is we take high quality ingredients from around the world and I infuse it into our local Hawaiian rock salts that we have here locally in Hawaii and what I did was I created this blend specifically because I wanted to share with the world what an emu tastes like. An emu is an underground oven that the Hawaiians cooked in traditionally and I think I nailed down, I looked pretty close to what it would taste like when I travel I can't dig an emu in someone's yard but what I can do is let them have that feel of what an emu smells like and taste like in one little bottle. That's one of my favorites, you just crack that thing open and it just like comes out, you just feel like you're... So aromatic. Yeah, you're at like a luau or something and I'll even put a little on my hand and like have, it's like a snack. It almost makes me like think I've eaten some like like kuru pork or something like this. Exactly. That's exactly what I'm trying to get at, you know they're right there. I'm gonna skip this one, I'll get back to that one. I'm gonna start on the far end, this is the Ho'okupu Salt, this is the remauka to my Kaiblan. I use this on my finishing salts because I want to have people be able to taste a little bit of our mountain, there's bamboo essence, there's charcoal flavor in there, there's a little bit of smoke and spice, but it's mainly about the mocha to makai flavor and I like to put it over all my finishing salt, salads or sauces. So my Ho'okupu is a gift. And you can see like all three of the colors. Yes, really nice, really nice color contrast throughout the blend as far as sitting on the shelf, it has a really nice color. So it's the alai, the red and then the green and the black. And some spice and smoke, just to balance it out. This is my Tutu Mama's Garlic Herb, this is one of my favorites that we grew up in Hawaii and Latin I always sing, everyone's house always had a garlic salt and one day when I was a kid I told my mom, let's make our own garlic salt, could we always use it. So this one is homage to my mother who's cooked off throughout our lives and taught us how to use simple ingredients and make simple food come to life and Tutu Mama's Garlic Herb, really nice color, there's a little bit of spice in there as well and some nice dried herbs and it comes together really well when you're cooking. You must love that, huh? Your mom is a force to be reckoned with too. Oh boy, she's the boss. And then last but not least is like, I call this my Manelei Everyday Blend, this is the story, this is the storyteller. This is the one me and my friend sat on the beach barbecuing and we always wondered, what can we do to put everything that we want in one bottle and take it wherever we go and use it every day on everything. And we came up with the Manelei Everyday, so this one actually goes out to the people and my friends back home. So it's just one jar heading down to the beach. Everything's in it. So it's basically a little bit of all of these guys in here but to a balanced flavor where it doesn't overwhelm the ingredient. I think you tried it before on a piece of fish or something, right? Oh yeah, I sure did. And I put it on my eggs every morning. I love this. And I always put these in pepper grinders. I can make it even more fine, so it's in rock form now but you can grind it down and make it more fine for finishing. So the rock salt's from Molokai? The rock salts are from Molokai, Hawaii Kai farmers, so mahalo to them as well. And when you purchase some of my five set, you get a cute little recipe cut that hangs over your refrigerator so every day you get to see me to remind you, don't forget to use my seasoning on your food. So in terms of culinary, you had a great career. I think we have a couple of kind of cool images of you in the kitchen as well as some of the, Matthew, where's that? Right now I had an opportunity to do a cookbook in 2017 with mutual publishing and star advertiser and they gave me a chance to work with culinary school out in LCC, the Leeward Community College, which is really cool because I think KCC and Intang, it's a lot of attention and I wanted to work with the school that had the least attention on the island and I think they have a lot of great potential out there with upcoming chefs and it was just a great opportunity to build a cookbook with students. Awesome. So who's like your inspiration? In terms of your culinary taste or even another chef or even a person in the world that's inspired you to be kind of who you are? Honestly, I thought about that a lot lately. It's a little bit of everybody. I think within my family and friends, they always say it takes a village to raise a man and I think the village I come from is Hawaii and Latin more specifically and I think from my grandparents to my family, to my friends' parents. I've learned everything from hunting through fishing. We didn't have a hunting guide or a director. We had our parents, our grandparents and our uncles to teach you how to load a gun, load a spear, shoot a fish, clean a fish and all that fun stuff and I think I would like to give love to everyone, you know what I mean for that. And so in terms of more on your culinary style, when you're making different types of food, how would you describe a staller as it really just editing with aloha on the plate? You know, I think I like to say at this point in the game, I like to serve aloha one bite at a time and I think with that said, some of my mentors that coached me and groomed me, they're still active. A lot of them, some of them have passed. Some of them are sick as we speak. But I think what gave me the inspiration was them letting me know that there's more out there than just becoming an executive chef. There's more to do. There's more to learn. So we're always gonna be students of this business and every day I wake up, I put my hand in my knife and I always remember the first day I did it, culinary school. So it's always been thankful for the startup because the startup is what gets you to where you are today and then persevering through all those challenges, through life and then of course the culinary business wasn't easy. It's not an easy ladder to get up but the payoff is hard work and believing in what you believe and it's how to keep going. Well, we'll be back after this break and learning more about your startup and entrepreneurial experience here in Hawaii. Thank you. Aloha, I'm Catherine Norr and I'm the host of Much More on Medicine on Think Tech Hawaii. We talk about medical issues and I interview guests regarding medical matters and I'm really excited about upcoming guests. I hope you join us every other Wednesday at 3 p.m. Aloha and see you then. Aloha, I'm Marcia Joyner inviting you to join us on Wednesdays at one o'clock for Cannabis Chronicles, a 10,000 year odyssey where we take a look at cannabis as food, cannabis as medicine, cannabis and religion, cannabis and dear old Uncle Sam. So please join us to learn all about cannabis. Again, Wednesdays at one o'clock. Thank you. Aloha, welcome back. I'm Mellie James of Let's Mana Up and we're interviewing today local celebrity chef Adam Tabora, founder of Manelli Spice Company. So, Chef Adam, you launched Manelli after just having this incredible experience and career. How has it been for you as an entrepreneur here in Hawaii launching this company? You know, it's been great, it's been a struggle. I don't regret any of it. I think it's been a learning lesson on many levels from self-management, keeping my composure through the rough times of cost, dealing with learning how to do packaging and UPC codes and all these fun things that retail consists of that was very new to me and I think it opened my eyes to a lot of other things in this business to understand that it isn't easy to do business in Hawaii, but it can be if you plan right, you get with the right people that support it and also you have to find the right people that it believes in you. Yeah, absolutely. You know, what kind of advice would you give to other budding entrepreneurs looking to start something up here in Hawaii? You know, after going through the Mana Up program and meeting some really cool companies and I meet a lot of great friends and family through them, one of the things we always talk about is planning, organizing and focusing on that specific area or item. I won, at one time was stretched too thin and I did it to myself and I think having too much things going on at once could really make things gray and cloudy and I think in the last year and a half to two years I've really focused on one item and that's Manali Spice Company and I think if entrepreneurs really want to succeed in Hawaii you gotta do a lot of homework. You know, you gotta understand the cost of things and shipping and sending back out, creating that brand and just that marketing that people would want to engage in and I think that's a tough part in Hawaii because there's so much great talent here in Hawaii, not just in food but in any area of entrepreneurship but in food itself, Spice is a company where it's expensive, you know, it's not cheap. The ingredients itself, so to put it in a bottle, to balance it where you can afford to pay and then sell it, that's the goal I think, is having that plan and foreseeing it and seeing focus on it because one little day of misinterpreting the day you could really put a set back on your weeks or weeks. Yeah, I think you really had a great point around kind of what's that story and what's that narrative behind the product because there is so much competition. You look on the shelf and there's just so much stuff, even for Omoyagi, there's just so many options. So how do you differentiate yourself? How do you set yourself apart? And I'd love to have you share kind of how you've done that with some of the real estate that you have on the bottles or with the story of Manelli and also while we're doing that, share some images that are close-ups of the products so everyone can see them. So I think for the five blends, every blend has a story. It's not just one story behind all five. Each one has a specific story and each one has a specific reason but they're all purpose, if that makes any sense. So I really wanted to focus on putting something on a plate on a table that everyone around the world could use easily. It also comes with an easy five-step recipe card that I give you so you can start off using it the right way and then you can kind of grow off of it. And I've learned that these recipes that I've helped pass out have helped sell it, help people understand it and use it and then also they can get creative with it. The labeling and stuff is important for me because I've learned that having a short store on each label really helps because people actually do pick it up in the store and they wanna know why. You know, there's so many different Hawaiian salts on the shelf and then all of a sudden you see Manelli Spice Company pop up. Why would anybody pick up Manelli Spice Company? I think one maybe because it looks pretty, maybe because it feels like you can afford it because it's not that big of a bottle. I think the amount is just right for an Omiyagi but I also think that what lies in it is that cool story that people can actually barbecade their homes and share that story because it's on the bottle. I love that. And I love the cards too, that's really been helpful even for me to have it on my refrigerator. Awesome. So what's coming up next for Manelli? Some of the momentum I launched a little bit ago and what's coming up next? I think what's coming up next for Manelli Spice is really focusing on the next five skews and I have that kind of lined up already. I'm just kind of fine tuning them. It's not that easy to fine tune between cost and flavor. Sometimes you go too much cost and it doesn't taste good or it doesn't taste balanced and if I go too much flavor and then it gets a little expensive. So right now we're getting ready to launch at Foodland Farms, Hawaii. I'm excited to do some stuff with Hawaiian Airlines. I'm not quite sure where we're gonna go with that yet but I'm excited. I don't know, I wanna leave it open right now because I want people to go to my website, ManelliSpice.com and follow me and see what we're doing and we have new products coming out and new recipes every week and every month. How can people, local people can support you? How can our community support you? You can go to my website at ManelliSpice.com or you can go to my Instagram, ManelliSpice. You can go to any Foodland Farms here in the next month and find my spice on the shelves and stay tuned. So I know that you've got just, your mind is always working and it's just so creative. Can you share a little bit more about some of the other products that you're developing or that you have? I have another small baby company that's debuted under the spice rack and it's called Pacific Survey. It's out in Safeway, Don Quixote Times and hopefully back in Foodland soon. But that's another five screws that came up with another five flavors. I have a Calo Coconut, pineapple calamansi, mango olena, tajian vanilla, and a strawberry guava blend. Those flavors, again, have stories behind them. Also, I came up with a 2017 cookbook, again, that I won first place with this year. That year was really awesome to get some kind of recognition for the hard work. Other than that, I'm really focusing on ManelliSpice and trying to drive this to the next level and getting the next cues out. Yeah. And I know that we kind of started off the show today sharing about that really deep experience you had of paving Dale's life in Manelli Bay. And I know that you guys are still in touch. Yes. Good friends. Yes. Can you share a little bit about over the years your friendship really growing? And of course, it was such a huge deal for him to reach out and say, I want to help you with your dream and underwriting your whole tuition. I think what happened was the day he felt that I saved his life, I think he saved mine. It was really neat when we went over to Lonay with you and meeting your mom and you calling Dale and his wife and retelling the story again and sitting on the beach there and just really kind of feeling that love for the Manelli Bay and it makes so much sense that you have made your company this. It all goes, like I said, it all stems back to the day on Manelli Bay. I think that as we look at these different flavors here and having gone through the amount of accelerator and really helping the company and the products really come to life, it's been neat to see how so many people are using these for different things. And I know we've used them on cocktails as well, right? Absolutely, these spices become very flexible. I want to say I use it in mixology, I use it in cooking, it's also salt for healing. I wouldn't say these are necessary for healing but the salts that live within the bottles are also natural, so they're good for medicine. So I truly believe I can get you, I can share a lot with you one bite at a time through these little bottles. And I think having you guys come home with me and sharing, bringing that story to life after saying it for how many years now and hanging out with you guys, I get to be home and actually let you see and feel the sound in the water that happened in and that was important to me and I appreciate that. And then being able to speak with Dale and I know you were talking before about, you actually went out to see him, right? Like he brought you up on stage? Yeah, I was 18 years old in Colleen School, he flew me to San Francisco and he wanted me to be part of this big guest speaking that I know about, kind of dressed me up in my first tuxedo and the whole nine yards and brought me up on the stage and kind of introduced me to his 6,000 friends supposedly and told him my story and it kind of hit me real hard at the time because I didn't think it was a big deal. You know, I was just a kid, right? I was 17 years old. We saved many lives in the beach growing up but I guess this one was, it took it a lot more serious than everyone else and again gave me the opportunity and coming home to visit me every six years and my daughter turned one, they came to visit. Every six years after that for about four or five turns they came back and then now they're gonna be 80 years old Margaret and Dylan's traveling is a little bit difficult so hopefully I can get the time and maybe Hawaii and Air can fly me out then I go visit them. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Is there anything that you can share with us around, you know, more around kind of your journey and I know that when you were in culinary school you had kind of another challenge come up and you kind of share, I mean I just think that your story's just been so neat with the ups and downs and just that perseverance and you're even saying that when he saved my, when I saved his life he saved mine and the fact that you guys have been so in touch over the last, you know, I won't say how old you are but 20 something, maybe 20 something years I don't know. Kind of how that's really driven you to be like who you are today and just such an incredible entrepreneur and just really inspiration to many Hawaii people. So after six days before graduating culinary school I won't get into the story too much but I was in a house fire. I burned my face and my hands and I didn't tell my parents for about seven months. I had one of my cousins stay with me and he took care of me literally every day and I had two heart attacks at 18 years old in the hospital through the trauma of getting burnt and it wasn't fun. I was very alone. I thought it was a failure because here I am supposed to become this great chef. After this great story and da, da, da I ended up burning myself in a major house fire and I was quit cooking. I didn't want nothing to do with it. I actually went into a rough time between the ages of 18 and 20, 21. I had nightmares for about 25 years. I still go to room every once in a while. But excuse me, what I think that keeps me going is my family setting myself up to not fail It was an option. Hey, you can really feel that strength, especially with your mom, just kind of that backbone of your family. Yeah. She's done a lot. Can't even get into that. She's done a lot. So now that you've got the company, I'm excited to see the next five flavors coming out, the Foodland launch coming out, being able for people to get it in their hands. At an individual level and in our own kitchens, as opposed to only being able to get it through the hotel because it was in a dish that I loved or something like that. Are there any last things you want to close with? I just want to say ma'ala to Hawaii, ma'ala to the culinary world and the people, ma'ala to Dylan Margaret. Ma'ala up, of course. My team there is also so beautiful and awesome. And I just want to say thank you to everybody that made this possible. Ma'ala. Thank you, Chef Adam, for being on the show today. And we're really excited for hearing the next big things coming from an LA spice company. I'm excited. Aloha. Aloha.