Episode #54
How a Peach in December Changed How Franco Fubini Sees Food
In Search of the Perfect Peach with Franco Fubini Franco Fubini, founder and CEO of Natoora and author of In Search of the Perfect Peach, joins Rick to explore how food, flavor, and seasonality connect us back to nature. The conversation covers how a single jarring peach-in-December moment helped spark Natoora’s mission, and why fixing the food system starts with rebuilding our taste for real flavor. Key topics In this episode, Franco Fubini explains why leaving finance for food gave him a much closer relationship with nature, even while living and working in a city. - He describes Natoora’s day-to-day balance between field sourcing and business operations, with about 20 to 30 percent of his time spent meeting producers. - Franco breaks down the “where are the peaches?” moment in New York in 1999 as a symbol of our disconnect from seasonality and from what our bodies should want at different times of year. - He connects flavor and nutrition through the idea of nutritional intelligence, arguing that flavor is nature’s signal for what the body needs. - He discusses how ultra-processing and added flavorings have made it harder for consumers to distinguish real flavor from manufactured flavor. - Rick and Franco compare chef-driven influence with consumer education, and Franco explains how Natoora uses restaurants, retail shops, and learning-focused storytelling together. - He says chefs are essential not only for volume and supply-chain development, but also for demystifying ingredients like puntarelle and artichokes. - Franco argues that consumers should pay more attention to growers and farmers, since understanding their work helps revalue food and shift spending toward better ingredients. - He shares his “white whale” ingredients, especially apricots and potatoes, and why the most surprising flavors often come from humble foods. - He explains why climate change is already making consistent sourcing harder, and why the future of agriculture has to be place-specific rather than guided by one universal label. - He closes by framing healthy soil as the foundation for complexity, nutrition, and flavor, with microbes, bacteria, and fungal networks all playing a role. Chapters 00:00 - Franco Fubini introduced as Natoora founder and author of In Search of the Perfect Peach 01:09 - Why working in food deepened his connection to nature 03:59 - How much time he spends sourcing versus running the business 04:39 - The peach-in-December story and why it matters 08:46 - Why a seasonal fruit craving signals a disconnect from nature 10:11 - Natoora’s mission to bring seasonality and nature back into daily eating 12:23 - Why flavor and nutrients are linked 13:40 - Nutritional intelligence and the body’s relationship to flavor 15:41 - How the food system stripped flavor from raw ingredients 18:18 - Why Natoora works through both chefs and retail consumers 19:57 - How restaurants create demand and build supply chains 23:54 - Using chef influence to educate and demystify ingredients 26:45 - Why simple home cooking makes great ingredients even more important 28:54 - The power of tasting a truly great tomato 30:29 - Why growers can be the real stars of the food system 34:23 - Franco on using farmer stories to raise the value of agricultural work 35:50 - White whale ingredients: apricots and potatoes 38:50 - How climate change is affecting sourcing consistency 40:29 - Flavor loss versus crop disappearance 41:30 - Where to spend more and where there is more room for compromise 43:21 - Why farming practices have to be adapted to place and crop 46:40 - Soil health as the foundation of a healthier food system 48:21 - How healthy soil creates complexity, nutrition, and flavor Notable quotes “Why does her body at that point desire a peach?” “Flavor is nature’s instinctive way of telling the body that this is something that you should be eating.” “Healthy soil means a soil that has a lot of active life in it.”
