HOTLIPS Pizza Co-Founder David & Jeana Yudkin
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Japanese or English
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Pizza is delicious. But David Yudkin, the owner of HOTLIPS Pizza, has given something to
his delicious slices more than their taste. David is a social creator, trying to improve
the society and environment by promoting the idea of sustainability. Because of this,
Pizza becomes vital.
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D＝David J＝Jeana
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Present the appearance of a sustainable business.
- Q: Can you describe the business of HOTLIPS ?
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D：HOTLIPS pizza is a 24 years old company based in Portland. It is a family-owned business with
four pizza restaurants and 120 employees. We are passionatea bout great food, the power of
community andthe bounty of our regions harvest.
We believe we are some of the luckiest people on earth to live here in the Pacific Northwest.
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Our mission is to preserve culture and celebrate humanity through our rich culinary traditions
and by joining with others in finding new, sustainable ways of doing business.
We aim to make each day more joyous and delicious!
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- Q: How does HOTLIPS work with the concept of sustainability ?
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D：As for sustainability, we have been tackling it from different aspects.
We use locally and organically grown produce to make our pizza. Because of this, we have
integrated seasonality into our menu. Typical toppings of the summer are tomatoes, corn and
summer squash. During the winter, they are greens, potatoes and sun-dried tomatoes.
This insures flavor, freshness and nutrition.
It also helps keep money within our community and maintains local agriculture and regional
food security.It reduces the amount of fossil fuel used to grow and transport our food.
Reducing fossil fuel is one of my big concerns, so we use electronic cars as delivery vehicles
and recently added a Toyota Prius hybrid electric car to my fleet.
When we deliver pizza by these cars, everyone pays attention to our unique cars.
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The wasting energy issue is also essential for us. We have installed a waste heat recovery
system on the oven which enables us to cook pizzas while producing more than enough hot
water needed for kitchen, laundry, janitorial and hand-washing purposes.
The hear exchanger saves us a lot. Besides, we changed the incandescent light bulbs to
compact fluorescent and began turning our equipment on only when it was in use,rather than
letting it remain on. In order to make it effective, we made our big windows on the sunny side.
In making these minor changes, we cut our energy consumption in half.
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Sustainability and community
- Q: What made you move toward sustainable business ?
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D：I first became interested in environmental issues in 1970 when one of my junior high school
teachers first explained global warming and its repercussions on society. I remember I was
stunned. For years afterwards, I could not understand why there was not more discussion
about this issue. In addition, I was moved into the pursuit in sustainability because of a store
manager’s announcement that he had been diagnosed with cancer. The manager was only 26
years old. I was distressed that someone so young could contract cancer. It seemed likely that
the cancer was caused by environmental factors.
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At the same time, we also needed to create a niche in a competitive market. So my wife and I
evaluated what we wanted from working on this, what was important to us. Then we decided
community and sustainability were important to us.
That is why we have begun to adopt sustainable business practices.
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- Q: I have a stereotype that the perception of sustainability is separate from business.
- What do you think about this ?
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D：There is sustainability and being green. Being green is the first step towards sustainability.
So I want to clarify that what I think about HOTLIPS is that we are a green company on the
sustainability quest. So we have not achieved the sustainability but we’re in a journey that will
take my entire working life.
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As far as business, we have an advantage in that we have been family owned. That is very
important to my wife and me so that we can look at investment in longer term. I think
corporately held companies have responsibilities to the share holders. They have to show
consistent return in short. I think that it is much more difficult for public company to move
toward sustainability. I think being green makes sense but it is very hard to go to sustainability
because that is a very long term. So I think we are in a good position.
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Have the room of the mind that can firmly feel happiness.
- Q: What is your vision ?
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J：The big picture is I think it is time to heal the world. There is a lot of violence and a lot of
distractive force. We need to make sure that there is positive and healing power that is not
hurting anything. That goes all the way from the food we use.
We want you to feel happy. We think that there are a lot of things in the world that bring
people down. It is important to be intelligent and to know what is going on.
It’s also equally important to have some space to have happiness.
So we want to make an impact on it through our business.
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- Q:You share the same vision, David ?
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D：Yes. we need to create a workplace like what she said. We have been doing it for fun and
interests to come to work and we want to get involved with what we are doing in a long-term
picture. It is good for our lives so we like to come here.
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It must be very good to be able to eat food in the region.
- Q: Do you have any plan to expand your business ?
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D：That is a very difficult question especially for our business model. If we go to another place,
we need to establish the new kitchen and the relationship with farmers, and then have a certain
amount of stores supporting that. And one thing is I don’t like franchising because I have never
seen a good deal for the franchisee. And the other thing is that my concern is really for my
community. What I want to do is to try to give information or inspiration to someone else and
other places to do what I do.
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On the other hand, there are technical problems. We are making soda but we couldn’t get the
bottles full. I put a few hundred thousand dollars into the project to solve this problem.
So I have to sell several million out in order to pay for my projects, and then start making
money. So one of the questions is can I sell the several million bottles only in Portland? Or do I
have to go Seattle and California. Do I need to send it to New York or London or Tokyo?
The question of scale becomes problematic. It is hard to answer your question because we are
doing something new. I am not sure how to draw the limit. But I don't think there would be a
HOTLIPS in Tokyo. I don’t want to grow too big.
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- Q: So Japanese people need to come here to taste the soda.
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D：I think that this is the first thing that makes Portland unique because it is about here.
I have got some people said that this is the best pizza they have ever had.
Some said New York pizza is better and I should make it like New York pizza.
My feeling is if you go to New York you can eat New York pizza. If you go to Tokyo you can find
Tokyo pizza. That is what makes life interesting. I don’t want to sell my pizza in Tokyo. This is
not my interest.
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So it would be more interesting to me that someone in Tokyo doing the good jobs making good
pizza there. So my feeling is Tokyo pizza is Tokyo Pizza and New York pizza is New York pizza,
and my pizza is Portland pizza. When you come to Portland, you can have some HOTLIPS pizza.
This is what makes life interesting. It is good to have the local food just like we are trying here
in Portland. You might go to McDonalds in different parts of the world but they all taste the
same. I think this is not interesting.
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This is an only choice leg.
- Q: Do you think it will be more common to pursue sustainability ?
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D：Yes. It has to be because it’s the only option. We have real resource limitations. There are
problems with water, fuel, air, land and so many things. So we have declining resources and
increasing population. When those demands for resources and reducing resources cross,
I think they are coming close enough though, we are going to get big problem.
There would be wars over water, food and fuel. So we have got to address this.
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- Q: Can I have a message for young people ?
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D：Kill your TELEVISION!!!
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J：Don’t forget real experiences. I know our kids are on their computer all the time.
It is important to eat great food and hang out with friends. Pay attention and get interests in
the world. We are going to lose it if we don’t build a lot of interests in it. Eating real food,
buying real food and sharing food is very important.
Not just eating in your car as you are running on place to another.
That would be my thought.
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- Thank you veyr much!!!
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『HOTLIPS Pizza』 URL: http://www.hotlipspizza.com/
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