Baked Beans Are Cooked in the Tin?! Behind the Barcode - Paul Hesketh

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[Music]

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Hi there and welcome to Author Conversations.

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As usual, I'm Chris Dabbs and today on Author Conversations I'm joined by Paul Hesketh.

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Now, Paul is an entrepreneur with more than four decades of experience in business,

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including agriculture, corporate governance and investment.

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His new book, Behind the Barcode, begins with something most of us do without giving a second

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thought to it. We walk into a supermarket and we pick up familiar products from the shelves

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without thinking about it. But, Paul argues that behind those everyday barcodes are extra

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ordinary stories of invention, accident, science, ambition, trade, rivalry and sometimes outright

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scandal. I can't wait to hear about the scandal, I've got to say. But from the origins of

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familiar foods to the businesses that turn them into global brands, the book asks us to look

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again at what is actually sitting in our kitchen cupboards. So, I've been looking through my

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kitchen cupboards and I'm a bit concerned that I like chili too much. But I'm sure we're going

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again to much more depth than that. Paul, welcome to author conversations. It's lovely to have you on.

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Thank you. It's good to be here.

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Excellent. Fantastic. Well, let's get straight into the questions. You've spent much of your

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working life in business and you also have a background in agriculture, right? You know, what made

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you decide that the story is behind everyday food was something that, A, you wanted to investigate

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and B, right about? Was there one particular product or story that started the whole thing off?

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Not really. It was just a total lack of real knowledge. When you're going to a supermarket or

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you're going to a local store and you're asking for maybe a bit of advice about a condiment or a food

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or what, or, or, or, you know, what, sort of what matches was there's very little coming back. There's

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not a lot of information and the more that I looked at it and looked at the people that were sort of

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behind the serving counters and stacking that they've got really no idea and you ask some

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basic questions and they just sort of shrugged the shoulders. So, I felt that there was a real gap

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for people to understand about everyday food and and and where they come from and and and things

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that we eat every day. Yeah, just no, that's a really good point, isn't it? I mean, you go into, I

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don't know, set up a deli or something like that and you would expect to have some advice.

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I wouldn't, I'm paying on, sorry, sorry, sorry, just got to get

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sort of just got some noise going on. I'll do that part again. Yeah, no, I understand that

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completely actually. I mean, if you think about it, if you go into a deli, I guess you're expecting,

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you know, people behind the counter to have some knowledge about what it is that they're selling

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and that they help you with purchasing something that you hadn't bought before by giving you a

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taste sterile or something like that, right? But obviously, if you go into a supermarket,

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that's it, isn't it? It's a commodity, you're buying a tin, you're buying something, you're not

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really going to get any advice. It's a good point to make actually. So, I mean, do you find that,

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do you, do you find that as well? I mean, going into a deli or somewhere specialist, like a specialist

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wine shop or something like that is, is the only place to get this sort of advice? Yeah, I'm,

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yes, but it's even more, it's even more basic than that. I mean, you know, people just,

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you know, you, you, you ask people and they say, well, what's the difference between a German

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and a marmalade? And they go, I'm, I'm, they just look at you like, I've no idea, they're the same. Well,

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no, they're not the same. And, you know, where this comes from, and you know, where that comes from.

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And they're really are clueless. And, and, and, and I'm not talking about

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products that we don't use every day. I'm just talking about basic absolute products that are

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in our shell, on our shelves, in our co-boots that are sold. In fact, the products, the basic products

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that I took for the book were from, were from from the local express store. So on, on, you know,

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every high street, on every corner, almost as if there's a, there's a, there's a, a food shop,

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whether, whether it's an express shop or a local grocery store. And it's that type of food that I

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wanted to concentrate on, because, because the, the lack of understanding of, of the source and how it

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ends up on their table is, is minimal. Yeah, all right. Okay. So you're talking about kind of like a

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corner shop, or not necessarily even a corner shop, I suppose, but just a, a shop that's selling

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food as a commodity, more than anything else. I mean, do you, do you really think that they should have

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an idea of where all of the, that their stock comes from? And, and what it is really? Or, you know,

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I think probably at the moment anyway, most people just expect to go in there by a kind of beans and

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walk straight back out again. Yeah, but exactly. And, and I think that the should, and when they find

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out the sort of surprised and, and, and, and sort of a little bit. So, I mean, you know,

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beans is a really good example, because I say to people on the baked beans side, general

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baked beans are cooked in the tin. And this is a look at with a blank expression, they go, no.

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I said, yeah, so they put them in and then, and then they seal the tin and then they cook them.

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I think they think about it, it makes absolute sense because it's helping with the bacteria,

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and it's helping to preserve the tin and the food that's in it. And a lot of food is done that way.

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But they've got no idea. And when they find that out, it's sort of the other smile on the face as I,

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I never knew that. And yet they've probably been eating beans for the last 40 years of the life.

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No, exactly, exactly. So, I mean, the central idea of the book is that something, as ordinary as

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a supermarket shelf, can hide some extraordinary history. I mean, I've seen a few programs over

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the years where they look back at food adulteration, back in the Victorian era and all that sort of

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thing. It's a bit scary. But when you began researching it, I mean, how different was the reality

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from what you thought you already knew about our current foods? Yeah, a lot. I mean, just,

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again, it was standard foods from the local express store that you will find in your kitchen today.

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And, you know, you take tea, for instance, and you start to understand about what we're to,

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you know, we take it for granted and we have our tea bags. But going back, you know, that was a

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big secret of China's Alta Mekti. And it was only massive companies like the East India Company.

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You know, they ended up employing the services of a botanist to go behind the lines, if you like,

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and sneak into China and steal the plants and get the plants out and also understand the process

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for making tea. All that happened with big business and espionage and, and, and, and, you know,

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underhanded tactics to actually get that out. And once they got it, then it became a,

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a product that was available around the world. But, you know, most of the, most of the foods have got

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history that is intriguing like that to understand actually how, are we just taking them for granted?

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Oh, absolutely. I mean, the other one that's like that is a pepper. Is that right? Yeah,

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it's something about, you know, just the normal ground that we grind as pepper. I think there was

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an issue again with, with one of those huge companies back in, back in those days. Yeah,

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I mean, it's day it was worth more than gold and the Portuguese and the Spanish and the

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refiting for the rights of it. I mean, it was big business. I mean, it was the, they were the,

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they were the Apple, Apple computers of the day or, or, or, or, or the, or the Tesla's. They were

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the big companies. They had the power and, and, and, and they were the rivalry. A big rivalry, you

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know, was the other on arm is, in fact, East India company had a bigger army than the British Empire.

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I mean, it was at that sort of scale. But yeah, certainly, Spice is big, big business

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and, and, and, and made the fortunes of many people. I think that's incredible. And as you say,

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if they were like the, the biggest companies around, and then, as you said, the Spanish and the

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Portuguese, they all sort of got involved with all of that, didn't they? Is he quite incredible?

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When you think about these companies had their own armies and things like that, but, you know, hang on,

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let's, I'm getting a bit too geeky here. So, I love this sort of stuff. But obviously, you're looking

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at the surprising origins of, or, of food that millions of us buy as we've said, you know, without

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thinking about them whatsoever. But which food actually surprised you the most then? Which origin

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story, if you like, surprised you the most? And there's a few, I'm really good tales in, in the book

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about some basic foods that we take for granted. I mean, I still love the, the 1957 Panorama

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BBC documentary where David Dumbled, they became on and, and, and, and, and flick to a, a field in

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Italy, where they were doing the, the, the, the spaghetti harvest. And it's a famous film. I mean,

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you can, you can see it on, on YouTube. And there were people picking spaghetti off, off the branches

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of trees. And, and, and, and it was introduced as, you know, the, the spaghetti harvest has begun.

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We're going over to a, a farm over, over in Italy. And this is how, I'll, they're now collecting

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the spaghetti. And, and they believed it. Thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of

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UK residents believed it. Rangob saying, how can I buy a spaghetti tree and, and all sorts of things.

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So, it, it, you know, those, that's just an, an intriguing story. I love, I love the,

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Liam Perrin's, the, the source that we, that we have with our, with our meals that, you know, that

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was, that was a couple of guys. The, and there's all sorts into wine with that because

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the story goes is, is that some, some governor from Bengal that had come back to the UK had got this

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secret recipe. And, and he wanted them to duplicate it and to carry on making it in the UK.

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The problem is that no one, no one actually knows who it is. And there was no record of this,

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of this, of this, of this governor. And they feel that that might have been made up. So,

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they feel that the mind of, of stolen the recipe from, from somewhere. But then the, the, the,

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they made it and they put it together and they put it in a, in a big vat. And it tasted horrendous.

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And they just thought, we got it wrong. It was a, okay, it was a good try. We had it, we had it,

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got it. And it was just wrong. Put it in the salad and ignored it for six months. And then sort

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of six months later, they go down there and they said, well, we'll just have a little taste.

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I needed fermented. And that's where the taste came from. So, there's, there's, there's good stories

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like that about the foods. The, the, the sort of just had a little bit of intrigue to, to what's

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on the, what's on the breakfast table? You must have heard in your research that there was like one

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story that you just didn't believe and you just thought to yourself, well, that simply just can't

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be true. But then it, and it turned out to be true. Or maybe one that turned out to be completely

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false. I mean, share with one of those with us. Things that surprised me were things like

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silly foods, like pot noodles. And, and just the way that the, the, the gentleman, the sort of

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research didn't put that together and made the first pot noodle by adding water. But just the size

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that food became, and the global reach that it had. I mean, they are served billions of times a year

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in the world, in, in Japan and China. And, and, and clever marketing, you know, that they've

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worked it out. So they put it in a pot and, and that you don't need a dish on the put a fork with

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it as well or a spoon. So it's literally food on the go. Everybody was working together on it to make

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it what it is. And it was just interested to see how the market is. I'd actually, I'd actually got

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to that stage. And, and, and, and really looked at this product to say, this is, with us a big niche

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here, a world, a world, a world niche here. And they're right because it's an incredible selling food.

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And that, you know, with, with, with Chris, I mean, we all tech Chris for granted. And, and the story is

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that there was some, there was a big gentleman in his restaurant serving some, some, some chips that were

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were soggy on, and, and, and the guy complained and he wanted them Chris. So he went back in and he

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sliced the potatoes very thinly. And, and, and, and fried him quickly and he made him crisp and,

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and sort of the Chris was invented. But that wasn't the real story. The real story was the problem is

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that they couldn't get him to anybody because they didn't know how to keep him fresh. And they didn't know

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how to package them. And they were greasy. So they put him in a bag and he put that bag on a shell.

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And, and, you know, within hours it was looking, it was looking like it was falling off the back of a

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lorry. So it was all the, it was all the very clever foil on the very clever packaging. And then to

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actually fill the bags with nitrogen as well. So it, it actually gives you that bulk and it keeps them

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fresh. All that came in from, from the scientific departments of, of the food people and the food

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processes. So yeah, when, when you're looking at things and you're like, I never thought about that.

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I didn't realize there was so much went into that food. And it was stories like that that when

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you're doing the research, you sort of think, you know, well, well done, you know, you've, you've got a

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product, you worked hard at it, you met things happen. And lots of people had lots of,

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the contributions are to, to, to, to make it what it is today for sure. And then become a brand that's

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worth billions, right? I mean, you know, this is the thing. So there's always, you know, we've,

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we've got so many questions nowadays about food and about whether they're healthy, whether it's not

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healthy, whether it's, you know, in their consumers interest to eat. Then you mentioned pot noodles

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earlier on. But of course, yeah, that's massive across the world. And we, we call them pot noodles here

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in the UK, don't we? But in other places, they call cup noodles or whatever it is.

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I know they've got different things here. Sure. Yeah. And a lot, and a number of, a number of things do,

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you know, we two big cities here and it's a different name in Australia. And yeah, I mean,

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and the other thing, just do you think that came out of the research is often the people that are

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credited with inventing for want of a better word or finding or creating the product didn't benefit.

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It was other people that benefited. They are the run out of money or they didn't have the resources

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to go into production or big business took over or somebody bought the mouse or whatever. I mean,

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the, you know, from memory that the Coca-Cola story is, you know, there was, there was a farm

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assistant, he got injured in the war and he was concocting things to help him. And, but it's not him

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that made Coca-Cola what it is today. It was, it was another name, another person that actually saw

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the marketing potential, saw what, saw the product and realised that it could be a well product.

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And that, there's a good line in that constantly through the book of people that

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names that we forgot that were, I mean, we know hines and we know, we know names of

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lightly unparriors and other people that put the name to things and they

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and they'd been maintained by the marketing today. But many, many cases, the people that actually

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formulated them would came up with the ideas sort of lost to history.

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And that happens so often, doesn't it? I remember watching the, I can't remember what the film's

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called about McDonald's, you know, the history of that. Yeah, and I've seen it and that's very good

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because yeah, and you know, he realised it wasn't about the burgers. I mean, you know, I've always,

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I've known that as a fact of life that if some, you say what, what is McDonald's as a company? And

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they said, well, it's a, it's a fast food company because that's actually not as a property company.

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McDonald's wealth is the real estate is the property. They know there's not many, there's no burgers

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on the balance sheet. They have to make burgers from the property, but they're actual, the wealth

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and their assets are property based. And that guy that played, great actor that played that,

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I'd saw that opportunity. He saw that. He understood that it wasn't about wrapping the burgers and

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get it. That was all part of the service, but the value of the business was somewhere else. Yeah,

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it was a good film. Forgot what he's called myself. Oh, yeah. Oh gosh, yeah, we'll get there in a minute.

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But I mean, yeah, I worked in McDonald's and I was very young and I loved it. I have to say, I

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completely loved working there for a while. And so when that happened at the end, you know,

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to the crocs, the people that said it up, I had a bit of a tear in my eye. I thought, oh, no,

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that's a bit sad, didn't it? But you're quite right, though. This is what big business is about,

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isn't it? I always remember the other one that was very intriguing was, I don't know if you've

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pictured it up, but it was the story about Jaffa cake. I don't know if you just saw that, but it was

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really good. There's no that payable on a biscuit, but there is that payable on a deluxe biscuit.

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Don't ask me why. That's HMRC's problem. And they, they, they, they realize, hey,

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somewhere I see decided that vitties are not paid VAT on a Jaffa, on what they call the Jaffa cake,

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which you should have done because they, JMRC said it's a biscuit with chocolate on, and therefore

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it was vatable and you've not paid that. So they sent them a bill for tens of millions of pounds and

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said, you owe us this money. So the court case and it became a court case and the argument was,

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is the Jaffa cake a biscuit or is it a Jaffa cake? A cake. And they went to court, and they matched the

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bait and brought one into court. And the bottom rule it was very interesting because because because

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vitties said it's a cake. It's always been a cake and therefore with cakes there's no VAT. There's

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only VAT on chocolate biscuits and it's not a biscuit. And it was interesting that the bottom line at

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the end of the day is the rules that it was a cake because there is a difference and the difference

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is that when a biscuit goes stale, it goes soft. And when a cake goes stale, it goes hard. And a

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Jaffa cake, when it stale goes hard, and they won the ruling. But so that was just something

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interesting that came out of the research. Now that's a great story. I love that. I was keeping my

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mouth closed, but when you were talking about how I was supposed to jump in because yeah, that's

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fascinating. A cake goes hard, right? And that's it. They argued it's not a cake because it sold

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as a biscuit. It sold on the biscuit lines. It sold on the biscuit shells. If you go to the biscuit

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aisle, you will find a Jaffa cake. It's definitely from H and Y C's point of view. It's definitely

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a biscuit. And they said, no, no, it's a cake. Anyway, on the ruling wall. Yeah. So Jaffa cake.

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Exactly. Yeah. Well, there we are. You see, now what have the great food companies understood

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then about? Do you think branding and marketing that we've just had a quick chat about that? But

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you know, that this branding and the marketing of everyday products to become, you know, global

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industries across things, you mentioned something along the lines of, you know, the nitrogen that's put

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into packaging nowadays that enables it to be, you know, moved around below the place. Tell us a

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bit about that. Tell us a bit about how there needs to be that this kind of in order to become global,

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there needs to be science behind food, which, you know, I guess is a bit of a shame in a way.

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It's lots that the sciences is everywhere. You're not going to create the foods that we have today

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without science. The chemistry departments, the scientists in the food in the food companies

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are absolutely key to make it preserve, to extend its shelf life of the foods that we have to make them,

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you know, to make them fit for us to eat. The scientist playing absolute role in that.

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There's no question whatsoever. There's quirks with the nitrogen, with the crisp packages,

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but generally speaking, wherever you look, whether it's pasteurised milk,

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or whether it's longevity of condiments in jars and in tins,

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where the cooking is done within the tins and within the jar. All of that is from the scientists.

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There are behind the scenes and making sure that it's as fresh as it can be, and it's up to the food

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standards. So big business plays a big part. And that's really what goes back to what I just

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a point we just talked about is where many of the people that invented these things in came,

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what were the ideas? She just didn't have the resources to set that bottling plant up,

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or the manufacturing facilities for the money that's required to set them up to such a scale.

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And you should we should take her out soft to that because without them, we wouldn't have the

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variety that we have today. I think that this is the other point that brings us to, you know,

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sometimes I think that maybe more often than not, we're actually just buying the brand.

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Are we sometimes do you think buying the story and the brand as much as the food itself?

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I mean, I can think of certain energy drinks that are basically brands that people just buy into

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in terms of lifestyles and things like that. Yeah, I mean, I didn't really research the power of

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the marketing side and what the marketing, what the marketers do. And I suspect that's

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got its own problems because yeah, because they can sell anything at the end of the day and

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they can entice younger people or whoever at one age group to buy their products, the very clever

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that we do picture, you know, we for some reason, you know, if you ask people about porridge,

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they're related to Scotland. And porridge is not for, you know, porridge is from Ults and okay,

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Ults do grow in Scotland and they may porridge there, but there's no other deep affiliation with that

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kind, but with that country, but yeah, you know, people have this mental thing about porridge and

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Scotland and KILTS and fighting birds and living on mountain sides and things like that. So yeah,

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it's all clever marketing. But I also think that the marketing plays a big role on the company's

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player big role in maybe not always attaining it or maybe being successful, but you know, helping

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with sustainability and the sources of the food. And I'm thinking particularly of things like,

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you know, tin tuner and tin fish and the way that that cattle are bred in vast amounts

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for beef, particularly in America and China. And you know, it's good that that's looked at and

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that's monitored because it's very easy to overproduce, it's very easy to overfish. And

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all of this needs to be looked at and controlled. And again, you know, I think there is,

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there, there, there, there, big business has a, has a responsibility. And I think generally speaking,

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they're pretty good at looking at it. Yeah, and sure, nowadays rather than, you know, in the old days,

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I guess, you know, where the dodo was hunted to extinction, that amongst others, right? So, you

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know, I mean, so talking about the business side, as we're, we're kind of running out of time,

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unfortunately, yeah, we could definitely talk rages about this. But, you know, given your own background

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as an entrepreneur, I mean, did researching these companies and products change your sort of view

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of what makes a successful business or perhaps they just clarify that that for you, or perhaps

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what can go wrong when a company becomes maybe too powerful or something like that?

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I think, I think from a business point of view, I, I, I, I realized that,

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you know, if you suddenly come up with a new invention today with a new food today, you know,

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it's going to take big money to get that to market. Nothing happens overnight. You're going to need

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investment, you're going to need somebody to actually make that happen on, on, on, on, on, with

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production and facilities. So, you know, bring your new foods today, think, now I can come up with it.

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I've got a better idea than Kellogg's or I can do a better deal than baked beans or whatever.

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You know, that, you know, it's a long haul and it's going to take you lots of money,

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and lots of effort to get there. So, you know, getting, bringing new products to that array,

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and getting them on the shelves of the supermarkets is a long haul for anybody, that, that's a fight.

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So, so yeah, that, it was, it was interesting to see how, I know, when you actually look deep into it,

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there's a lot of big companies on a lot of brands, you know, like Mars, for instance, Mars don't

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just make Mars buys, you know, Mars are into pet food and all sorts of things. I mean, you know,

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that's a private company still to this day. What, what, what people know very little about, if truth

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was known, a billion, billion pound enterprise, that's, that's, that's family-owned and family-controlled,

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but they have lots of products that you would never even think of, and that's the case with, with,

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with lots of conglomerates. So, yeah, I think that from an economic point of view, from a business

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point of view, was good to find that out and do a bit more research. And the big names are always

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the, the Heinz names, are there, the McDonald's names are there, and, and, and things like that.

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But, but certainly, from my, from my experience in business, not an easy route to bring a new

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product to market. Exactly. I mean, I think you're, you've got, you're, you're, you're working with an

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alcoholic brand or something like that, aren't you? At the moment? Yeah, I was involved. I did start a,

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a drinks company producing spirits, a rom vodka and, and gin, with a bit of a tweet because I,

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I actually put CBD with it. So, that was something that I was involved in, but I've actually,

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I've actually sold that now. So, that's, that's actually gone. But, but, you know, I'm looking

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around for new products and new opportunities. But, yeah, I think it was just an interest from

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my recultural background, which was actually in, in beef and sheep production, many, many years ago.

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But it's sort of, I'm understanding and, and I look for where it comes from that, that sort of

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prompting me to write the book. And then, of course, you do, as you know, you do research and, and, and you

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do, and you do, you know, you do your own fact-finding of what's happening and lots of other stories come

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out. Yeah, and then, no, totally. All right. So, penultimate question then. So, after looking through

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all of this and doing all of this research, investigating the hidden life of familiar foods,

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I mean, is there one everyday product that you'll personally never quite look at in the same

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way again, whether that's because of fun things or something that was really, you thought, that's a big

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thing. Sorry, and it's really boring. And I've mentioned it, but the one with people talk about it. And

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I just, because I just know that no one knows. And I go, do you know, they make baked beans? Do you

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know? They go, well, they cook them in a tin. I said, no, no, no, the problem in the tin, and they cook

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them. And it's just the expression on people's face, like, real. Yeah. They cook baked beans in the tin.

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Yeah. And boring, not everybody has the same as the same mannerisms and expressions. And they go,

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it's just ridiculous. Why didn't you know that? You must have eaten a thousand tins in your life. Why

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don't you know? So, yeah, it's a bit boring, but that is the one I sort of fall back on.

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Well, yeah, no, it's not boring because it's true, right? And I mean, you know, it is for, and I can

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imagine that everyone that you say that to probably does go, well, that doesn't make any sense. I

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thought tin's explode if you boil them. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So if people take away

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just one message from behind the barcode, right? What do you hope that they understand about the food

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that they eat every day at least? Well, I think I sort of studied my summary, you know, hopefully

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they will have a better knowledge of where it comes from. And that, to my mind, fees itself back

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into sustainability. And they must think about, you know, where it comes from. And particularly with

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the tuner and the fish and those types of products and the beef, I think it's a good thing that people

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give some thought to that. But at the end of the day, you know, hopefully it just becomes

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conversation, good conversational quality around the dinner table or breakfast table that people

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talk a little bit more rather than just buying it or running the back because it's so easy. That's

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what we do. We don't see a cat. We don't see a lomeray you. We don't see these products growing in

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the fields. We just buy the package and open them and put the milk on it or boil them or fry them or

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cook them. So I just think that I want to just open up more interest about what we all eat every day.

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That was one thing. And I think that's going to be something that will definitely happen with

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more people just hearing about your book Paul. You know, it's been fascinating talking to you today,

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Paul Hesketh. And thank you very much for joining me on author conversations. Behind the barcode,

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by the way, Tixen was the most familiar things in our cupboards, just to remind you, and supermarkets,

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and reveals the history, the science, the business, and sometimes the extraordinary human stories

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hiding behind them, you know, like all that history from the East India companies and things like

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that. Paul, it's been a real pleasure talking to you. Can you just let us know what your

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socials are so that people can get in touch with you and where they can find your book and all

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of that good stuff? Thank you. It's obviously available on Amazon in hard Microsoft back and on

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Kindle. On my website is PaulHesketh.com so you can go to read more about the book before buying it.

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Have a look at some reviews. I also sort of take it to answer my next one this in the pipeline. So,

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so we can you can keep up to date with what I'm doing. Okay, well, and what's the next book?

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My next book is Beyond the Blueprint. And that is about how

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everyday items that we take for granted, not through, but everyday items from

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frying pans to teflon to to penicillin to the basic things that we take for granted,

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is how they came about by default. They were they were all found, everything that's covered in my book,

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were all found and invented where people were looking for something else. They were not

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they were not sat in the lab looking for to find superglue. They were not sat in the lab trying to

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find a thing called teflon. They were not sat there were doing something else and through mistakes

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and through quirky things, you know, they were not trying to invent a microwave to cook food in.

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It just saw happens that we're dealing with microwaves to something else and one of the guys that

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was dealing with it, noticed that the chocolate these pockets started to melt and they got no idea why.

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So it's about items like that. Fantastic. I mean, I can't wait. And hopefully we'll talk about that

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again in the future. Fantastic. I'm really looking forward to hopefully talking to you about that

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book as well and we can go from there. But Paul Hesketh, it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you.

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Thank you very much for educating me as well and thank you listeners and viewers for watching

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author conversations. And I'll catch you guys in the next one and in the meantime, let Paul know down

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the comments what you think about food and industrial farming and industrial processes and all of the

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history behind the food that we take for granted. Paul Hesketh, it's been a pleasure. Thank you very much.

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Thank you.

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If you enjoyed this conversation, you can watch more author conversations here.

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