This month on Seed To Cup guest host Nathanael May (Customer Marketing Manager, Pacific Foods) interviews the brothers behind BKON—Lou and Dean Vastardis. Each episode of Seed To Cup dives deep into the stories of the coffee industry’s most fascinating founder, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders.
“[Lou and Dean Vastardis] have an incredible journey that they have taken in coffee,” says May, “but then they also come from a family that has taken a long journey in coffee as well.” 2021 marks the Vastardis family’s one-hundredth year in the coffee business.
“I don’t think that we ever really thought much about it. It was just you got in the family car, you got on your dad’s car and just smelled that coffee. Dad always smelled like coffee. We went to visit dad at work, we’re climbing on beans of green beans, bags of green beans and just running around a roasting facility. For us, it was just normal. I didn’t really start to appreciate it until I got a bit older and started to get more involved in it, but it wasn’t necessarily something that I really saw as my path at any age until I pretty much found myself just falling into it. That was a happy coincidence.” – Dean Vastardis
Seed To Cup on the Sprudge Podcast Network is dedicated to the art of the long-form interview, focusing on the coffee industry’s enigmatic founders, influential executives, and major culture movers. This new monthly show is a coffee-perfect version for fans of podcasts like How I Built That, The Pitch, and other deep-dive interview programs.
Listen to the full episode now via Spotify:
Full transcript available here.
Check out all of the Sprudge Podcast Network shows here.
This season of Seed To Cup is sponsored by La Marzocco and Seattle Coffee Gear.
