Cheddar's own Chloe Aiello tries out some unusual pickle flavors with Eddie Andre, head of brand at Grillo's Pickles. 

<div class="block">Cheddar&#39;s own Chloe Aiello tries out some unusual pickle flavors with Eddie Andre, head of brand at Grillo&#39;s Pickles. </div>
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Wake Up With Cheddar

On the Scene: Trying Pickles at Grillo's Pop-up 

Happy Friday, everyone. Welcome back to Cheddar News. I'm Baker. Tomba T G I F. Now a story for all us pickle fans out there. Not Baker. He's not included on this. Our very own. Chloe AO is taste testing some of the most popular pickles at a pop up right here in New York City. Good morning cloud. Delicious. Grillo's pickles are sold at thousands of retailers across the country including whole Foods target and so many more. But the prince beginnings, we're a lot more humble and now I'm joined by Eddie Andre V P of brand at Grillo's to talk all about this exciting company at the pop up here in New York City. Eddie. Thanks for having us. Yeah, thanks for being here. All right. What can you tell us about the origins of this company and brand? Yes. So started as a family recipe. It's 100 year old Garden Fresh recipe. It's seven natural ingredients. Um Travis Grillo, he started out of a wooden pickle cart. I was the first employee. Um so I was 18 years old. I was setting up the pickle cart in the Boston comic selling two Spears for a dollar. We had spicy and original. At that time, we were only selling loose pickles. We didn't even have them in jars and it was the only all natural healthy snack that was available in the park. So we were set up next to the hot dogs, fried dough, sugary lemonades. And we had a cheap healthy snack that people could come refresh, chill out, eat a pickle. Uh, and, you know, that's how we started. Well, it's pretty clear the Bostonians just ate that right up. Yeah, it was great. You know, people really thought, you know, is this a real pickle cart? You know, like do you grill pickles? Because people thought it was a grilled pickle instead of grillo's pickles. So it was, you know, kind of funny. But, um, you know, Boston was a great city to start the brand in and looking around. It's clear that there's a lot more than just pickles going on. So what was inspired, what inspired the actual brand? You know, I put a lot of my own personal interest into the brand. Um, you know, growing up skateboarding and the music and the fashion sneakers, all this different type of stuff to keep it fun and, and work with people. Um you know, that we wanted to work with, it was important for me to reach out, collaborate and just keep it a fun lifestyle brand that was kind of different from what all the other food brands were doing at the time now. It's pretty clear that there's a far cry between uh selling pickles out of a cart on the streets of Boston to selling it in retailers like Whole Foods. So how did you build the company from there to where it is now? Yeah. So, you know, selling pickles on the street, we ended up getting into Whole Foods and we took that same energy that we had on the street and put it into our demo program. So I managed a lot of different people across the country as we started to expand and we would sample pickles, which we can do right now. Yes. So we did, you know, demos and whole foods. We would basically set up a little table, sample out product. Let them know our story. Hey, we started right here in Boston. It's all natural seven ingredients and if you like them, you can get them in the refrigerated section right here. Um And we did that at as many Whole Foods Stop and shops, shaws, local markets every weekend for, you know, six years. Um Just introducing the brand and the product to people and we would wear the gear. We would be, you know, really showing up uh totally different sunglasses while we're demoing grillo shirts, while we're demoing and people really resonated with that and wanted to learn more and then thought like, man, these are the, these are really good pickles, but also you guys are a really cool brand. And you're talking these pickles up. I can't wait to try. What Pi pickle is this one? So this is the classic garlic dill. It's got fresh garlic dill. Spring water grape leaves, a little bit of distilled white vinegar and uh salt. Ok. I'm gonna try this. Mm. They're still good. They're the best, world's best Grillo is number one, Andre. Thank you so much for having us here at Grillo's pop up in New York City. When we come back, I'm gonna try the spiciest pickle here at Grillo's. Hello. Hello, friends. Welcome back to wake up with chatter. I'm Baker Machado. Do do. We're live in Lower Manhattan. Grillo's Pickles is all about getting its pickled recipes just right. But our very own Chloe. I went to their pop up location right here in New York City to find out what else they have in store. Wow. I'm here with Eddie Andre V P of brand at Grillo's Pickles at the New York City pop up. So earlier I tried the traditional dill pickles, uh, chip, but you have a lot of other flavors. What can you tell us about some of the newer ones coming out? Yeah. So we have a lot of different flavors back in the day. We used to do farmers markets and we actually had a pickle shop in, in Square for a few years. So we brought some of those items back. But we have our sweet and spicy, which our fans actually voted for. Those are available on target. Now, we have garlic cloves. We have red onions. We have dilled pickled carrots with my buddy Anwar carrots, green tomatoes. A fan favorite. This shop has been the pickled red grapes with mint leaf. Really refreshing and super delicious. And then we have the blazing hot, which is what you tried a little earlier, which has six times the Habanero than our spicy dill pickles. People said they weren't hot enough. So hopefully this satisfies the heat seekers. Yeah, I can attest it is really hot. So what's the secret to actually getting the spice and the flavor? Right? In some of these different pickles? Yeah. So our brine is really the the base of everything that we do and then we add a little bit of, you know, mint leaf to the grapes, black pepper corn, to the onions. Um you know, Habaneros to the, to the blazing hot. So it's really, you know, the spices and herbs that you put into the jar. But the brine itself is really the, the gold that we that I call it, you know. All right. So we've been talking about the pickles, of course, which are the star, but we have this beautiful pop up here as well. It's a lifestyle brand. What can you tell us about some of the clubs that went into this? Yeah. So, you know, it's always been a dream of mine to have a shop in the Lower East Side. We used to do the Orchard Street Pickle Festival every year and we took that same energy, put it into this shop, which is now Pickle World. So my buddy Matthew and Jill, he did the mural here. It's all hand painted. Super fun. Um We've done a lot of different collabs. So, you know, we got the pigeon tea by Collette. She's great. She did amazing. This is a fan favorite right here. The little Pickle Wiener dog. And then we have, you know, pickle Polaroids. We have Adrian who did this amazing hand drawn pants, all custom. We have Eric Foss did the Pickle barrel tea. It's a pickle surfing in a wave shut skateboard party is going to be happening. So we have Russ Pope did the art here with the oldest skate company in New York City. Shut skateboards, Abbott's Field Collapse. The list goes on, you know, we made pickle camo. So this was over dyed desert camo that we made into a pickle camo with my buddy Najib custom tie dye sweatpants. The list goes on. So it's really fun. You know, we just want a little bit of something for everybody and it all sort of ties together with what you said earlier, this lifestyle brand beyond just Pickles. It's also what you and your friends love skateboarding and all that. I incorporated a lot of my friends into this, the hot sauce here is a collab with my buddy Nuke. He actually used to sleep on my couch back in the day. You know, there's a lot of love uh within the brand and everything that we do. Everything's very intentional. So tell us how long can New Yorkers check out this pop up? We're open till the 18th, June 18th. All right. A V P of brands that grill those pickles. Thanks so much for having us. Yeah. Thanks for being here. All of that looks delicious. Our thanks to Chloe A for that pickle lovers. You obviously know where to go. I know where I'll be going. Some of those flavors were so good. I've never had them still not enticed at all. I mean, I wouldn't say no, it like it got, you know, shoved in my face. But I, you know, look, I'd eat it but like, well a few months ago, me and you did a Tik Tok trick. We roll up. I loved it. You hated it. And then we also soaked him in Kool Aid. That was ok for me. The reason why I don't think I'm a pickle fan is because it's a texture thing for me. It's like very mushy to me. So it's like, yeah, I think it's, it's, it's a texture thing. It might be, you might not have had the perfect pick. I just don't have the p the pickle palate, you know,