Profitability Under Pressure: Winning the War on Rising Costs

Yasmin Curtis is the Founder and CEO of one of the nation's top emerging seafood brands, Two Fish Foods. Launched in 2019, it was inspired by her popular Two Fish Crab Shack restaurant in Chicago, Illinois after Curtis made the innovative move to bring the product to a wider audience during the pandemic. The brand’s signature 3 The Chi-Way sauce became a standout feature and the frozen boil bags quickly became a go-to for seafood lovers across the country. Today, three variations of Two Fish Seafood Boil bags are available in major retailers nationwide, including Walmart, Kroger, H-E-B, Albertsons, Meijer, Harris Teeter, and Mariano's. Recognized as a successful food industry entrepreneur, Curtis has been featured in Biz Journal, Food and Beverage Magazine and Entrepreneur Magazine.

Troy Hooper joined Pepper Lunch as one of the three global business unit CEO’s for the brand, and oversees Pepper Lunch’s parent company in North America, Hot Palette America. Troy brings 30 years of unparalleled experience in hospitality, operations management and executive leadership to this role, which has fueled Pepper Lunch’s infrastructure development, growth efforts, and brand deliverables, creating a fruitful franchise model for the North American market. Throughout his career, Troy has successfully built new concepts, rebranded existing restaurants, and improved well-established venues for iconic brands. Troy’s decades of experience and business acumen brings a breadth of knowledge to the rapidly growing global brand, Pepper Lunch.

After 15 years of working his way up through the competitive ranks of NYC’s financial sector, Andrew Pudalov made a conscientious decision to leave his most recent position as Global Head of Fixed Income Derivative Trading at National Australia Bank to pursue an interest he felt was a virtue of higher importance. While he worked his entire adult life for a number of prestigious financial institutions to achieve an expertise in institutional fixed income derivative trading, he simply felt it time to gratify another more altruistic ambition he had always held. Andrew founded Boulder’s University Hill District’s first all-natural bowl/smoothie bar in the fall of 2004, providing a healthy alternative to the common “Hill” fare. After enormous success, Andrew launched a line of frozen grab-n-go bowls soon to meet the ever-mounting demand. Today, he operates Rush Bowls retail, wholesaling, and franchising with over 100 stores in various stages of development throughout the US.

Doug Willmarth joined Beans & Brews Coffeehouse in 2024 as CEO, bringing nearly three decades of experience in multi-unit restaurant leadership. He was previously brand president at MOOYAH Burgers, Fries and Shakes, where he reinvigorated the brand famous for the best cheeseburgers in America. Throughout his career, Doug has specialized in building iconic brands and creating profitable sales growth in franchised restaurant businesses. Prior to MOOYAH, Doug’s restaurant experience includes roles as Chief Brand Officer for Mongolian Concepts, Chief Marketing Officer for Wingstop, and Director of National Marketing at Pizza Hut. Doug’s passion for best-in-class franchisee support and understanding of key sales and profit levers for restaurants are key to the success of franchisees at Beans & Brews.