 Welcome to the Valley Advocate Podcast, featuring interviews that take us deeper into the people and happenings on the local scene. For more podcasts and a closer look at what's going on in the valley, visit us at valleyadvocate.com. Hi, my name is Dave Eisenstadter. I am the editor of the Valley Advocate, and this is the Valley Advocate Podcast that we do in collaboration with Amherst Media. I'm here with arts and culture editor Gina Bevers. Yes, you are. And we're here with Tony Tones, who makes some granola, not just any granola. Local maple granola. That's the name of your business, right? That's the name of our product. Our business is called Massachusetts Artists and Foods, because we aim to make more than just granola with Massachusetts products. And we make granola here in Massachusetts with maple syrup grown right here in our state. Yeah. We make a lot of different local rock bands or music bands. Yeah, we make different blends where we take inspiration from local artists. And we ask them their ideas, and then we put their name on the package and a little description about them. And then they get to bring our products with them on tour all across the country, next to their t-shirts and CDs, and we get to put their name in all of our grocery stores. I'm a local artist. Excellent. All right. Yeah. I need to think about my own granola. Yeah. Great. But even if you never make it, I need to think about my own granola. Yeah. Right. Because everybody should do that. You got to start with a local herb or fruit. And then think about what kind of pairing goes with you. So what would you, or do you have your own granola? Well, I am in one of these bands, and our band is called Flame and Peach in the Liberated Waffles. And the Liberated Waffles, yes. And so we use some local spicy peppers from Kitchen Garden Farm that are a little bit lemony flavored because one of my band mates, my partner, Jamie, is very into lemon. And then we combo that with some peach preserves, because we're called Flame and Peach for the happiness that comes from the earth. And then we add a little bit of other spices in there to kind of balance it out and give us some really great feeling. That sounds... You want to try it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a yeah. So I tell people that this is like a two minute heat. It's spicy. Okay, good. It's not mild. It's medium. So maybe we should have had this at the end. I know. Right. No, we're good. We're good. I'm sorry. You ready for it? Yep, I'm ready. Apricot there and there. Okay, wow. This is really pretty. I can have the glasses on. Yeah. But this is... I mean, I'm just looking at it, and so it looks like there's like candy gingers. There is candy gingers. Oh, good. I didn't notice that. And is that like a walnut or a pecan? There are pecans. Yep, you're seeing pieces of pecans, almonds, and then sesame seeds kind of bind up onto the sunflower seeds. That is so good. I didn't notice how Dave was really methodical, and I just looked it in my face. Well, yeah. In different ways for different folks. I just wanted to see what... You know, I want to see what I'm eating. But like... It's really nice. I'm glad you like it. I love it. Yeah. I'm not just saying that either. It's really nice. I kind of feel like you've got... Your idea of what local is is kind of interesting because it's not just the local products that you're using. You're using like the local ideas of people that are just here. And I mean, I think that's really cool. Yeah, that is really cool. Thanks. I mean, that helps you expand your whole idea of what pairings are and having to... Absolutely. It's a science in a way, huh? Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, we do... I mean, we do Valley Advocates sessions where we invite in musicians, and I mean, I saw these little bags of granola at State Street Fruit Store, and I was just like, oh, flame, we've had them in. And then Bell's Barge... And I was like, these are band names. Why are they on granola? That's pretty much the point, yeah. But I'm curious kind of how that connected for you. How did you come up with the idea of, okay, let's make music-inspired food that people will taste, so they're tasting the sound of these musicians or at least the ideas of these musicians. Ah, yeah. It's probably a combination of my previous experiences and then one moment in time and then the desire to start a business to learn as an experiential learner. It felt like I was at a point where I was ready to do that. So the experiences that I've had are like, I grew up as a musician, I used to book shows like in VFWs when I was in high school, and then also the buy, be a local hero campaign started in the small town that I grew up in by mostly a couple people in the church that my parents went to. So I learned about that, and my parents advised me to start saying, well, this is local music, kids, adults, you should all come out and see the local music because the local food scene already kind of exists. And so that evolved and I went to UMass and I met a lot of really great musicians living in Amherst and going to school there. And then one day, so I was doing merch for Bella's Bar Talk because they're good friends. I've done a lot of like wearing weird costumes or their big heads and dancing during their concerts on like bigger events. And so sometimes we'll do the merch, my partner and I, after their shows. And they, for a while, and I think still today, had toothbrushes. And you know, people who've been to a Bella's Bar Talk show before want to come back. That like say, that like say, regular toothbrushes as Bella's Bar Talk. And we sold them just very quickly because people were impressed that there was something they never had. But also it's something you need, especially at a festival. How many people have gotten to a festival and not at a toothbrush and it's a reasonable price and it's cool. And so that right at the same time that I was doing that, I was starting this business and recognizing that it's like cereal. We all have a lot of options. There's not always like, it's not always clear why we choose what we choose when we're in the grocery store. And you know, I've been eating, I used to manage a place that had tons of granola. I've like gone through many of the different local suppliers because I just eat a lot of granola as I work really hard and busy. And it felt like what was I going to do to differentiate us other than using only local food as the flavor. And it just sort of clicked to me that the bands would get this benefit of having their name out in public in a sphere that they would never see. And as a super, I would say like hyper small business, like we both myself and the other owner have other jobs that we really care about. We're both educators. We're part time in alternative education. And so as a way to not try to spend all my resources, finding a nationwide distributor or spend all of my time convincing someone high up in the supermarket system that my high quality product was worth taking on, a new idea for distribution was to just send it out with people that I love and people that I trust who need support and the kids, Bella's Bartok, old flame, like some of the core members of these bands are people that I've known for a long time and really care about. And I want to support them being successful artists. And as a single individual, buying their CD is great, yada, yada, yada. But this is something I could actually do to then build with people who are already building themselves, but also now looking forward and helping artists who aren't as exposed using this kind of platform. What this is really doing is it's like revolutionizing what's on the merch table. I mean, like, you're starting with toothbrushes, you're going into granola. I mean, you could really go anywhere. And if you all are familiar with Momma's Marmalade, they're a local bluegrass band and have been friends with one of their members for a long time. Yeah, I thought we'd have a good session. And so we've been talking about how we're going to make Marmalade this summer. And then when are we going to turn a Marmalade granola out? Because they would love to have a Marmalade for each one of them, I think. Yeah, do you have any do you have like, do you have any band? Like, so I feel like normally people in your position be like, oh, I really hope I get an X store, Y store. Like, do you have a band that you're like, I really hope that like they'll come in and like make a granola with us. That's a great question. I mean, I think Suitcase Junket is on the top of my list because I just love his music. Parsons Field love their music. Would love to have them in. Yeah, I haven't, you know, that's a really great thought that I haven't really put a ton of ton of plans on. You're in. Yeah. Yeah, good. I'm more involved like that. You know, you want to be a why not? OK, great. So me and Jean have a band now and. Yeah, great. Yeah, I feel so honored to already work with two of my favorite bands, like and the kids and Bellows Bartok are bands that I've just like driven around the region to see because they make me really happy when I've lived in other places. I've like listened to their music. Did anyone have like a really crazy idea that was like way too out there? They were like, that would be a horror that like Sardines and granola. Yeah, I've heard a lot of good ideas and there are some other ones. And yeah. I mean, I think consistently everyone is like, so when are we going to make the cannabis granola? That's a very good question. I've learned a lot about that from your podcast, actually. And it's not up for we're not ready for it. OK, that's been the most wild idea that people want. Yeah, it definitely is. But almost every band is like cannabis. At the front. Yeah, well, that's a great question to have. I was sobbing. I said no to sobbing. Also, we don't grow with sobbing here. Right. It was easy to say no to. Hopefully nobody asked for asparagus. Not yet. OK. Oh, man. Yeah. Some like Hadley based bands that would be pretty cool. I would be cool. That might work. They make asparagus ice cream. Like a dry ice cream and garlic. Garlic is some we're going to be at the garlic and arts festival this year. Oh, that's great. No band has asked for a garlic flavor. Could you do that? So I'm not sure. Of course, absolutely. They do garlic ice cream. We'd get that garlic and arts festival does some amazing things. OK, I've not been there yet. So maybe I need to go see what this is done. There are some varieties that are so sweet that they kind of lose all that like spicy buzz. And if you cook them really slow and low, the sweetness kind of emanates out and then you can use that. Interesting. It won't be like bitey. It'll be more like undertone. All right. What else do you have in your bag? Oh, good question. Oh, yeah. That's a great question, Gina. Yeah, and we'll subside on that spiciness. This is our and the kids blend. We got double ginger. So that's candy ginger. And then we take ginger from old friend's farm and they powder it, which is a great thing to make your own tea and drink it. But what we do is we take pears from either Small Ones Farm in Amherst or Apex Farm out in Shelburne. We cut them up and we roll them in that powdered ginger and then dehydrate them in our ovens. And then we mix that in in the second round of making the granola. So and the kids just love ginger. That's their... They asked for a lot of things. They said, well, how can we get sparkles? Was one thing like glittery things? Was something that both and the kids in Bella's Bar Choc brought up in conversation. But then also they just, they like the ideas of pears, I think, a kind of a spicy and cool combo of gingeriness. Let's see what's going on here. Beautiful. Yeah, and don't skimp on the sparkles. Yeah, real. And I'm not beautiful again. Okay, well, yeah, I'm just gonna take a look here. So this is like, I don't even, like this looks like one of those like peanut butter filled pretzels, but I don't even know what that is. That's a pear. This is a pear. Okay, that's awesome. And then we got almonds, oats and stuff. That's so good. Yummy. You mastered this thing. Thank you. I gotta give credit where credit is due. The other bakers have done a lot of work. I am really into working with people and working with food, but my business partner, Erin Irvin, is an incredible baker. And she does a lot of the kind of like, yeah, pear, ginger, sounds like a good idea. How are we gonna make it taste like something people really want? Yeah. Kudos to Erin. Yeah, kudos to Erin. One thing that I was thinking about, so this is merch for these bands now, and they're like on the road, but they're basically gonna be stuck in a car for like hours and hours with food that they can't eat without like cutting into their profits or whatever. True. So I have promised them. There's some temptation. Every time they go on tour and take, we typically send these four ounce bags and five gallon buckets. A farmer told me once before I was gonna send them to him, he said, I need an indestructible package. If I'm gonna put your really nice looking granola in with my root vegetables in the back of a truck and five gallon buckets really do it. You can fit about 30 of them into a bucket. But I always promise at least two pounds of granola just loose in a big bag. So, and with Bella's Bartok probably last them like six hours, but I think Old Flam might have had it all the way down to south on their last tour. Maybe they didn't make it home with it. So it is a bit of a temptation for sure. Yeah. So how do you do your packaging? Well, in short, one of my favorite artists in the Valley, Michael Kriggler, who's part of Prank Designs, he designed this logo. And he did that with a lot of kind of input from us and back and forth. And then I am not a professional designer, but I got through web design class in high school by learning to design with Photoshop. And so I've just taken all of kind of the important pieces of what we needed to say about the granola. And on the back, just taking descriptions of the bands from their own words and sort of with my own a little bit of tweaking and done this design. And then we get these stickers printed at Paradise copies right now. Oh man, right down the road. Right down the road, yeah, yeah. And they are like an extremely important resource for me as a small business owner who makes a lot of mistakes. They like really helped me fix, you know, I sent you the wrong thing. Can you print it right now? I have so much credit to them. Everybody needs one of them. Yeah, for real. All right. You wanna try some more? Yeah. Great, what do we got here? I need to know what's happening. So this is cardamom, apple pie. Oh. And old flame blend. Is this old flame? Yeah, Emma asked me to kind of do something that gave us a little nostalgia for that blend. I'm still like loaded up with the last one. Oh, cool, yeah. All right, so what have we got here? All right. Oh my gosh. Local apples, you can have this bag if you need it. Oh, you're the best. Local apples from Apex Farm this season. And we dehydrate those at our bakery and then we mix in a little bit of black pepper and a little bit of cardamom. Oh, nice. Mm, glad you like it. Isn't it nice? Wow. And just like the spicy granola, you get a little more of the pepper when you eat it with a milk, like the spiciness kind of dissipates into the milk and then when you eat it straight up like this, I get more of the cardamom and the maple and sesame. I feel like I'm like on the trail. I feel like I can take the like, yeah, like, yeah. It's really, really pleasant. Yeah, wonderful. It really is pleasant. Hey, you. Yeah, so where do you get this stuff? We get all of our maple syrup either from North Hadley Sugar Shack or Hager's Farm Market up in Shelburne Falls. We use a distributor called Hillcrest and they're out of upstate New York. And they, I mean, the way they explain it to me is they aim to use grains that are as local to their region of upstate New York as possible because it's also economic and also like about their choice as a business. And then we kind of go out into our farmer's market knowledge about all these flavors and what we're gonna be using from the local farms. And so I've worked with quite a few farms and food purveyors here in the Valley. I studied food, agriculture and education. So I was exposed to a lot of our local creators. Last season, I was lucky enough to work with Kitchen Garden. We use spicy peppers from them. I've already mentioned that we work with old friend's farm, get their ginger. And yeah, we kind of like go for whatever the bands are aiming at and then how do we, do we already have any relationships with anybody? And we go from there. And then where do we get? Yeah, where do we go? Oh, thank you. So these bags are four to five dollars. The flavors are generally around four. That's four ounces. Okay. Yeah, and so you already mentioned State Street, Cooper's Corner, River Valley. We're at Crimson and Clover Farm Store, Brookfield Farm, Nex Barnover, Simple Gifts Farm. Sure, I'm forgetting one, but I think that's most of them. Yeah. And where can we find you? What's your, what website? Oh, we're at localmaplegranola.com or Massachusettsartisanfoods.com. Yeah, and then I'm at flameandpeach.com or LiberatedWaffles.org. I love the LiberatedWaffles. Everybody needs a LiberatedWaffles. Yeah, agreed, yeah. Well, thanks so much for coming in and especially for bringing us to Granola. Yeah, we'll snack in the day. Yeah, so we're happy to share. Thank you both for having me. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Tony. Yeah. Thanks for listening and don't forget to visit us at valleyadvocate.com.