The Food Blogger Pro Podcast

Hosted by Bjork Ostrom

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594

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Sep 2026

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About the show

Welcome to The Food Blogger Pro Podcast, hosted by Bjork Ostrom from Pinch of Yum! Our goal is to help you create a beautiful, functional, and profitable blog. We interview successful food bloggers and industry experts in an effort to surface strategies that can help you more efficiently grow and monetize your site. You'll learn about recipe SEO, food photography, plugins, monetization, traffic, and more. New episodes every Tuesday! Learn more at foodbloggerpro.com/podcast

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September 8, 2026Episode 5871 hr 11 min

Building Smarter Systems as a Creator with Andrew Wilder and Miranda Wicker

Rethinking how you work and implementing guardrails for AI with Andrew Wilder and Miranda Wicker of NerdPress. ----- Welcome to episode 587 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Andrew Wilder and Miranda Wicker of NerdPress. Building Smarter Systems as a Creator with Andrew Wilder and Miranda Wicker This week on the podcast, Bjork sits down with Andrew Wilder of NerdPress and Miranda Wicker for a conversation on AI, content creation, and what it means to stay human in an increasingly automated world. They dig into a question every creator is facing right now: Are you reacting to the AI shift, or are you using it to rethink how you work? They'll walk through real examples of AI integrations, memory, skills, scheduled tasks, and MCP connections, including NerdPress's very own guided agent connector, built with guardrails and approval steps for safer site management. If you've been wondering how to use AI to work smarter without losing what makes your content yours, this episode is a great place to start! Three episode takeaways: Rethink instead of reacting: Rethink instead of reacting: Andrew and Miranda discuss how creator businesses have weathered the changes to search over the last few years. Their key takeaway: it's time to rethink how you work, not just brace for what's next. Use AI as a tool, not a ghostwriter: AI shines at research and repetitive work, but if you allow it to write for you, be prepared for writing that's just average. Let AI support your process, but allow your own passion and expertise to shine through in your own writing! Implement guardrails to make AI safer to use: Memory, skills, scheduled tasks, and MCP connections — Andrew and Miranda share how they're putting these to work, including NerdPress's guided agent connector, which includes approval steps for safer site management. AI can help you do more, but with just enough oversight to keep it from going rogue. Resources: NerdPress Imagine I handed you 10,000 brilliant employees tonight. What would you do with them tomorrow morning? — @PeterDiamandis on X Slack Claude ChatGPT Granola Littlebird Episode 584 of The Food Blogger Pro podcast: A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Claude as a Food Blogger with Shruthi Baskaran-Makanju OpenClaw Caffeine and Cabernet Clariti Raptive Join the Food Blogger Pro Podcast Facebook Group Thank you to our sponsors! This episode is sponsored by Yoast and Clariti . Learn more about our sponsors at foodbloggerpro.com/sponsors. Interested in working with us too? Learn more about our sponsorship opportunities and how to get started here . If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com . Learn more about joining the Food Blogger Pro community at foodbloggerpro.com/membership .

September 1, 2026Episode 5861 hr 4 min

Reinventing Yourself as a Creator with Timothy Pakron from Mississippi Vegan

Standing out with your story, treating your blog like an ecosystem, and reinventing yourself as a creator with Timothy Pakron from Mississippi Vegan. ----- Welcome to episode 586 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Timothy Pakron from Mississippi Vegan. Reinventing Yourself as a Creator Timothy came to food blogging by way of studio art and his passion for fresh produce, not the blog itself. He started sharing his photography and vegan recipes on Instagram first, built an audience there, and landed a cookbook deal before he ever put much focus into a blog. In this conversation, Bjork and Timothy talk through what it looks like to build a body of work around a strong personal point of view, and why story and connection have carried his career from Instagram to a second cookbook (Garden Variety), and a thriving blog. They also chat about the practical side of running a content business today: how Timothy uses AI tools as a strategy partner for auditing and refining old posts, how he's adjusting to a search and social media landscape that keep shifting under everyone's feet, and how he thinks about his blog less as a static archive and more as an ecosystem that needs constant tending. If you're trying to figure out how to stand out with your story or navigate a creative career that has real ups and downs, this episode is for you. Three episode takeaways: Treat your blog like an ecosystem — Timothy doesn't think of his site as a place where posts go once and stay finished. He walks through why constant refinement, from updated photos to reworked copy, keeps older content fresh and performing well, and how he uses AI to help spot which posts need attention and to sharpen his strategy around them. Your story is your differentiator — With a background in studio art, Timothy has always leaned into what makes his perspective his own. He talks about his passion for the creative process, being intentional with how he shares his story and connects with his audience, and why that connection matters more as content gets easier to produce at scale. Watch the industry without falling into comparison — Timothy shares how he stays aware of what other creators are doing without letting it eat into his time or his creative confidence. He talks about drawing inspiration from other people's success instead of measuring himself against it, and why he sees his creative expression as something no one else can replicate. Resources: Mississippi Vegan Garden Variety Cookbook Pinch of Yum Keysearch Mississippi Vegan Gumbo Jeremy Finds AI Raptive Mediavine Pinch of Yum Income Reports Ugmonk Follow Timothy on Instagram Join the Food Blogger Pro Podcast Facebook Group Thank you to our sponsors! This episode is sponsored by Clariti and Raptive . Interested in working with us too? Learn more about our sponsorship opportunities and how to get started here . If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com . Learn more about joining the Food Blogger Pro community at foodbloggerpro.com/membership .

August 25, 2026Episode 5851 hr 5 min

Why Trust Matters More Than Detection in the Age of AI with Jeremy Carrasco

Transparency around your AI workflow and protecting your creative voice with Jeremy Carrasco from Jeremy Finds AI. ----- Welcome to episode 585 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Jeremy Carrasco, the creator behind Jeremy Finds AI and founder of Riddance. Why Trust Matters More Than Detection in the Age of AI with Jeremy Carrasco Pop quiz! Can you actually spot AI-generated content if you saw it? Jeremy's background in live streaming, encoding, and video production gave him an early edge in identifying synthetic content, but as AI videos get more realistic, he explains why that edge is disappearing fast, and why the old advice to simply "train your eye" isn't enough anymore. In this episode, Jeremy makes the case that the real question isn't "can you spot AI?" but "do you trust the source?" He and Bjork get into the difference between acceptable and deceptive AI use, why disclosing your AI workflow might actually build more trust with your audience, and what "human-forward" creation looks like in an increasingly synthetic feed. Jeremy also shares candidly how he uses AI in his own work, and why he refuses to let it touch his creative edge. If you create content in any capacity, this conversation gives you a clear-eyed look at where trust is headed next and what it'll take to hold onto yours. Three episode takeaways: Spotting AI is basically a coin flip now: The days of "train your eye to catch AI" are over — content's gotten too realistic, and platform algorithms make it even trickier to know what's real. Trust in the source matters way more than trying to detect fakes. There's a real difference between using AI and hiding AI: Being upfront about your AI workflow can actually build more trust with your audience, not less. It's not about ditching the tools — it's about being honest when you use them. The smartest move right now is doubling down on being human: As AI gets faster and cheaper, the creators who protect their creative voice and stay unmistakably them are the ones who'll stand out in an increasingly synthetic feed. Resources: Jeremy Finds AI Riddance Lion's Den YouTube channel: RocketJump Zach King's YouTube channel YouTube star Hank Green apologizes for ChatGPT overuse after fans accuse him of including a prompt by mistake — Fortune Patreon Substack YouTube short from Jeremy Finds AI: This political influencer isn't real Why Nobody Can Stop AI Art Scams — Jeremy Finds AI on YouTube Join the Food Blogger Pro Podcast Facebook Group Thank you to our sponsors! This episode is sponsored by Yoast and Clariti . Learn more about our sponsors at foodbloggerpro.com/sponsors. Interested in working with us too? Learn more about our sponsorship opportunities and how to get started here . If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com . Learn more about joining the Food Blogger Pro community at foodbloggerpro.com/membership .

August 18, 2026Episode 5841 hr 5 min

A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Claude as a Food Blogger with Shruthi Baskaran-Makanju

Using AI to run a smarter food blog, understanding the different Claude tools, and moving beyond using AI as a chatbot with Shruthi Baskaran-Makanju from Urban Farmie. ----- Welcome to episode 584 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Shruthi Baskaran-Makanju from Urban Farmie. A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Claude as a Food Blogger Shruthi Baskaran-Makanju recently made the leap from a successful career in management consulting to become a full-time content creator with Urban Farmie. Her background in business strategy didn't disappear when she made the switch, and it has become one the most valuable tools in her toolbox, especially when it comes to how she uses AI in her business. In this episode, Shruthi shares how she's moved well beyond using Claude as a chatbot and has started treating it as a genuine business partner — delegating tasks, building custom skills, and creating systems that let her spend more time on the work only she can do. If you've been curious about AI but aren't sure how to actually integrate it into your workflow in a meaningful way, this episode is a great place to start. Three episode takeaways: There are different stages to incorporating AI into your workflow — and most people stop too early — Using Claude to answer a question or draft a caption is just the beginning. Shruthi walks through what it looks like to move from using AI as a chatbot to using it as a true assistant: one that handles mundane, repeatable tasks on your behalf so you can focus on the work that brings you joy. Custom skills are one of the most powerful AI features for food bloggers — Shruthi has built a library of Claude skills tailored to her business — including one that creates a virtual board of advisors to help her think through decisions. She breaks down what a skill actually is, what makes a good first skill to build, how to workshop and iterate on a skill until it does exactly what you want, and how she uses skills to write and refine standard operating procedures for her team. Understanding your AI tools makes all the difference — Knowing when to use Claude Chat vs. CoWork vs. Design vs. Code can save you a lot of frustration. Shruthi explains the differences between the tools, walks through how connectors like QuickBooks work, and shares why auditing your AI workflows on a monthly basis is key to getting the most out of the tools available to you. Resources: Urban Farmie TED: The unsung heroes fighting malnutrition Mise en Claude TextExpander Inside Crowded Kitchen's Strategy for Growing to 2.4 Million Followers on Facebook How Mika Kinney Turned Her 480,000 Instagram Followers into Site Traffic and Revenue WisprFlow Airtable Shruthi's AI Challenge for Food Bloggers — use code "FBP" for $45 off Follow Shruthi on Instagram Join the Food Blogger Pro Podcast Facebook Group Thank you to our sponsors! This episode is sponsored by Clariti and Raptive . Learn more about our sponsors at foodbloggerpro.com/sponsors. Interested in working with us too? Learn more about our sponsorship opportunities and how to get started here . If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com . Learn more about joining the Food Blogger Pro community at foodbloggerpro.com/membership .

August 11, 2026Episode 58352 min

Why Jeanelle Castro Thinks YouTube Is the Most Powerful Social Platform for Food Creators

Building a thriving food blog by putting YouTube first, growing to 2 million subscribers on YouTube, and using social media to drive blog traffic with Jeanelle Castro from Jeanelleats. ----- Welcome to episode 583 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Jeanelle Castro from JeanellEats. Why Jeanelle Castro Thinks YouTube Is the Most Powerful Social Platform for Food Creators Jeanelle started Jeanelleats ten years ago while still working a 9-to–5 — but she knew she had always wanted to be an entrepreneur, and she always loved making videos. In 2016 she started posting on YouTube, got serious about tracking her metrics and posting consistently, and within a few months her channel started taking off. Today she has nearly 2 million subscribers on YouTube! In this episode, Jeanelle shares how she built a content system where YouTube is the engine that drives everything else — including her blog traffic, her Google rankings, and her brand deals. She explains how she uses YouTube Shorts to drive traffic to her site (her CTA is simple: "head to Jeanelleats for the recipe!"), and why she believes that the success of a social post and the performance of a blog post are more correlated than most creators realize. Three episode takeaways: Promoting YouTube videos of your recipes can improve your Google ranking — Jeanelle has noticed a real correlation between pushing a YouTube video of a recipe and that recipe's performance in Google search. Since YouTube is owned by Google, there's a connection between video engagement and search visibility that food bloggers with a YouTube presence can take advantage of. Combined with the branded search that grows when your social content performs well, this is another reason to prioritize video even if SEO has felt out of reach. What a YouTube first posting strategy looks like — Jeanelle publishes to YouTube first, then reposts to Instagram and TikTok. She explains her posting cadence, why YouTube is her #1 platform from both an audience and revenue perspective, and how she thinks about Instagram differently — it's less important for direct revenue, but it still matters for brand partnerships. Why Jeanelle is leaning into her blog and how it fits into her overall revenue — While brand deals remain her number one income source, her blog revenue has recently surpassed her YouTube AdSense revenue. The blog has become her priority precisely because it's the most stable and predictable of the three — and she's noticed a direct link between promoting YouTube videos of her recipes and improved Google rankings for those same posts (a win win)! Resources: Jeanelleats LinkDM Raptive Clariti GRO Manychat Follow Jeanelle on YouTube , Instagram , and TikTok Join the Food Blogger Pro Podcast Facebook Group Thank you to our sponsors! This episode is sponsored by Yoast and Clariti . Interested in working with us too? Learn more about our sponsorship opportunities and how to get started here . If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com . Learn more about joining the Food Blogger Pro community at foodbloggerpro.com/membership .

August 4, 2026Episode 58057 min

Building Brand Authority Through PR with Lydia Bagarozza

Building and positioning your brand through earned media and PR with Lydia Bagarozza from Visibility on Purpose. ----- Welcome to episode 582 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Lydia Bagarozza. Building Brand Authority Through PR with Lydia Bagarozza Have you ever wondered how food creators and brands land coverage in respected publications, and whether that kind of press is even worth chasing? In this episode, Bjork sits down with PR expert Lydia Bagarozza to demystify proactive PR, showing that it's less about crisis control and more about shaping brand perception and earning credibility through the media. Lydia breaks down how to pitch timely, newsworthy stories to the right editors and producers, and why clear positioning and specific expertise can turn a pitch into a yes. The conversation also makes the case for PR as a long-term investment. Lydia explains how appearing in respected publications and local news builds social proof, backlinks, and brand signals that feed into SEO, AI visibility, and trust, and she shares go-to tools like Qwoted, Connectively, and Help a Reporter Out for finding real media opportunities. If you've been curious about earning press for your brand, this episode is a great place to start! Three episode takeaways: PR is about long-term brand building, not just crisis management: Proactive PR helps shape how your brand is perceived, builds awareness, and earns credibility through the media well before you ever need it for damage control. Positioning and specificity make pitches easier to say yes to: Editors and producers are more likely to cover you when your pitch is timely, newsworthy, and grounded in clear, specific expertise rather than a generic pitch about your brand. Earned media pays off beyond just visibility: Appearing in respected publications and local news builds social proof and backlinks that can strengthen SEO, AI visibility, and overall trust — and there are accessible tools like Qwoted, Connectively, and Help a Reporter Out to help you find real opportunities, whether you go the DIY or agency route. Resources: Visibility on Purpose GRAZA The Minnesota Star Tribune Food & Wine Bon Appetit The New York Times The Atlantic Good Morning America Claude Martha Stewart VegNews The Pioneer Woman ChatGPT Entrepeneur Inc. Forbes Qwoted (affiliate link!) WisprFlow Featured Connectively Help A Reporter Out Follow Visibility on Purpose on Instagram Join the Food Blogger Pro Podcast Facebook Group Thank you to our sponsors! This episode is sponsored by Clariti and Raptive . Learn more about our sponsors at foodbloggerpro.com/sponsors. Interested in working with us too? Learn more about our sponsorship opportunities and how to get started here . If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com . Learn more about joining the Food Blogger Pro community at foodbloggerpro.com/membership .

July 28, 2026Episode 5811 hr 6 min

What's Actually Holding Your Food Blog Back in Search with Liane Walker from Foodie Digital

Mitigating risk in search marketing, cleaning up link spam on your site, and getting your technical SEO foundation right with Liane Walker from Foodie Digital. ----- Welcome to episode 581 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Liane Walker from Foodie Digital. What's Actually Holding Your Food Blog Back in Search with Liane Walker from Foodie Digital Liane Walker has seen just about every SEO mistake a food creator can make. In this episode, she's sharing her expertise about the two things that matter most right now for food blogs — getting your technical SEO foundation right and creating content that's structured to reach the right reader. One of the biggest issues Liane has noticed time and time again with food bloggers is link spam — something that might seem harmless but can quietly become an SEO success killer. She breaks down exactly what Google considers as spam, when to mark a link as nofollow, and how this is all a part of mitigating risk in search marketing. Three episode takeaways: Technical SEO comes first (and link spam is a bigger deal than most food bloggers realize) — Liane sees link spam issues often in her SEO audits, and she's clear that it's a really common barrier to search success. She explains what link spam usually looks like for food bloggers, why Google's spam algorithm targets it, and the practical steps you can take to identify and clean it up on your site — including when to mark a link as nofollow. Once your technical foundation is solid, content strategy becomes the priority — Liane explains that the real work is in your content strategy: organizing content in a way that signals meaning to search engines and structuring posts to serve both readers and algorithms. Reader-first and robot-first don't have to be in conflict — One of the most practical takeaways from this episode is Liane's framework for balancing SEO best practices with genuinely useful, readable content. She walks through her tips for writing and formatting posts in a way that serves both audiences — and explains why, in a world of semantic search, these two goals are more aligned than ever. Resources: Foodie Digital Why Search Intent Matters for Food Bloggers with Liane Walker from Foodie Digital Siftr Google Search Central Link Spam Policies A Couple Cooks Pinch of Yum Lily Ray's Algorythmic Follow Liane on Instagram Join the Food Blogger Pro Podcast Facebook Group Thank you to our sponsors! This episode is sponsored by Yoast . Interested in working with us too? Learn more about our sponsorship opportunities and how to get started here . If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com . Learn more about joining the Food Blogger Pro community at foodbloggerpro.com/membership .

July 21, 2026Episode 58050 min

Why Personality Is the New Competitive Advantage with Sam Vander Wielen

Financial freedom and the power of authenticity in the age of AI with Sam Vander Wielen. ----- Welcome to episode 580 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Sam Vander Wielen. Why Personality Is the New Competitive Advantage with Sam Vander Wielen This episode digs into the gap between the idea of entrepreneurship and what it actually takes to build a business. Sam shares how she was first drawn to food blogging and online business because they felt like a path to freedom, only to realize she was in love with the outcome, not the daily work required to get there. That realization led her to a better-fitting path: combining her legal background with the creator economy to build a business that helps online creators with legal templates and advice. From there, the conversation opens up into something deeper: success, "enoughness," and what actually creates fulfillment. Sam gets candid about major personal hardships, including brain surgery, caring for her father through leukemia, and losing both of her parents, and how those experiences forced her to confront a hard truth: business success and financial growth can solve a lot of problems, but not the personal ones. She and Bjork talk about protecting your time, building with intention, and why leaning into story, personality, and authenticity matters more than ever in an AI-shaped world where purely informational content is easier to replace. Three episode takeaways: The outcome you're chasing isn't always the work you love: It's easy to fall for the idea of freedom and flexibility that entrepreneurship promises, without realizing that the daily grind of running a business is a completely different thing to love or hate. Sam's pivot to serving creators with legal expertise came from getting honest about that gap. Financial success can't solve personal problems: Going through brain surgery, caring for a parent through illness, and losing both parents pushed Sam to separate the two. Business growth can build security and options, but it won't fix grief, burnout, or a sense of "enoughness" — that work has to happen elsewhere. Story and authenticity are your defense against AI: As purely informational content becomes easier to automate and replace, personality, voice, and lived experience are what keep creators irreplaceable. Protecting your time and building with intention isn't just a lifestyle choice — it's a competitive strategy. Resources: Sam's website Sam's book, When I Start My Business, I'll Be Happy The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel Morgan Housel says he's met a half dozen billionaires — and his new book shows how you can be wealthier than all of them — Yahoo The 5 Types of Wealth by Sahil Bloom Sam's newsletter, Sam's Sidebar Craft + Commerce — Kit The U.S. Copyright Office This Week in Startups ElevenLabs Sam's podcast, On Your Terms Follow Sam on Instagram Join the Food Blogger Pro Podcast Facebook Group Thank you to our sponsors! This episode is sponsored by Raptive . Learn more about our sponsors at foodbloggerpro.com/sponsors. Interested in working with us too? Learn more about our sponsorship opportunities and how to get started here . If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com . Learn more about joining the Food Blogger Pro community at foodbloggerpro.com/membership .

July 14, 2026Episode 57954 min

How Search Is Changing and What Food Bloggers Need to Do About It with Casey Markee

Navigating the new rules of search in SEO, building credibility and authority as a food blogger, and prioritizing clarity in your writing with Casey Markee from Media Wyse. ----- Welcome to episode 579 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Casey Markee from Media Wyse. How Search Is Changing and What Food Bloggers Need to Do About It If you've been feeling like search and traffic have gotten harder to figure out lately — you're not imagining it. The rules are genuinely changing, and they're changing fast. In this episode, Casey breaks down the biggest shift happening in search right now — the move away from the traditional "10 blue links" model toward a semantic, AI-powered model where Google constructs answers from multiple sources and tries to keep users on Google rather than sending them elsewhere. For food bloggers, this means that publishing a well-optimized recipe is no longer enough, and Casey explains exactly what it takes to thrive in the search landscape that's replacing it. Bjork and Casey cover the technical fundamentals that still matter (core web vitals, internal linking, structured data), the growing importance of building a content ecosystem and genuine topical authority, and — perhaps most importantly — how to make yourself and your brand visible beyond your website. Casey also walks through what knowledge panels are, how PR mentions and media appearances feed into Google's knowledge graph, and how a new feature called the "preferred source" button could be a real competitive advantage for food bloggers who move quickly. Three episode takeaways: Search is shifting from lexical to semantic — and that changes everything — Google is no longer just matching keywords. It's building answers from multiple sources and increasingly keeping users on its own platform. Casey explains what this "semantic model" of search means in practice for food bloggers and why traffic patterns are changing. Authority and ecosystem matter more than ever — The technical best practices haven't disappeared, but Casey makes the case that food bloggers now also need to build credibility off their site: through local media features, PR mentions, cookbooks, and other signals that feed into Google's knowledge graph and help establish a knowledge panel for you or your brand. Clarity and formatting are your new competitive edge — As LLMs and AI-powered search tools become a bigger part of how people find content, the way you structure your posts matters more than ever. Casey shares practical advice on formatting blog posts so they're easy for both humans and AI to navigate. Resources: Media Wyse Surviving (and Thriving) in an AI-First Search World with Casey Markee Advanced SEO Q&A with Casey Markee E-E-A-T, Static Homepages, AI, and More Food Blog SEO Advice with Casey Markee Understanding the Google Algorithm – Tracking Google Updates and Analyzing Traffic Drops with Casey Markee Optimizing Your Food Blog's SEO with Casey Markee How to Boost Your Blog's SEO with Casey Markee from Media Wyse Urban Farm and Kitchen Leite's Culinaria Feast Hubbub Shareaholic Help your readers find your site through preferred sources in Google Search Microsoft Clarity Pinch of Yum Content Square (previously Hotjar) Email Casey Join the Food Blogger Pro Podcast Facebook Group Thank you to our sponsors! This episode is sponsored by Yoast . Interested in working with us too? Learn more about our sponsorship opportunities and how to get started here . If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com . Learn more about joining the Food Blogger Pro community at foodbloggerpro.com/membership .

July 7, 2026Episode 57852 min

How Josh Gale Grew His Audience to 1.2M+ in Under a Year by Leading with Storytelling

The power of storytelling and diversifying across platforms with Josh Gale. ----- Welcome to episode 578 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Josh Gale. How Josh Gale Grew His Audience to 1.2M+ in Under a Year by Leading with Storytelling In this episode, Bjork interviews Josh Gale, a content creator who has rapidly grown his online presence in the food industry through his blog, The Chef Out West. Josh shares his journey from being a private chef and participating in food competitions to becoming a successful content creator within just a year. He discusses the initial challenges he faced, such as learning to film and edit, and how he overcame the fear of starting something new. Josh emphasizes the importance of storytelling in content creation, explaining how his personal experiences and passion for food have helped him connect with his audience. He also highlights the role of social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook in his growth, sharing insights on how different types of content perform across platforms. Three episode takeaways: Just start, even if it's not perfect: Josh waited until he felt ready, but the real growth came from simply hitting record. Imperfect early content is part of the process, not a reason to delay. Storytelling is the differentiator: What's driven Josh's rapid growth isn't just great food, it's the way he frames it. Audiences connect with the why behind a dish as much as the dish itself. Know which platform does what: Josh treats Instagram as his traffic engine and his blog as his revenue hub. Understanding each platform's role, rather than chasing all of them equally, has been key to building a sustainable business. Resources: The Chef Out West Toronto Sun — Josh Gale Talks Cheesecake Flop on MasterChef Canada Season 33: Episode 5 of Beat Bobby Flay: Another "Flay" in the Office Episode 527 of The Food Blogger Pro podcast: How Storytelling Helps Creators Stand Out Online with Brita Britnell Check out Josh's potato waffle recipe on TikTok! Episode 125 of The Food Blogger Pro podcast: Monetizing as an Entrepreneurial Chef with Shawn Wenner and Chris Hill Episode 561 of The Food Blogger Pro podcast: How Food Dolls Turned Facebook Into Their Top Traffic Source Meta Business Suite GRO (formerly Grocer's List Episode 547 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast: Inside Crowded Kitchen's Strategy for Growing to 2.4 Million Followers on Facebook Episode 2 of Food Empires by Grocers List: He Quit Cooking for The Rock to Go All In On Instagram Tastemaker Conference Mediavine Raptive Substack Follow Josh on Instagram and Facebook! Join the Food Blogger Pro Podcast Facebook Group Thank you to our sponsors! This episode is sponsored by Clariti . Learn more about our sponsors at foodbloggerpro.com/sponsors. Interested in working with us too? Learn more about our sponsorship opportunities and how to get started here . If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com . Learn more about joining the Food Blogger Pro community at foodbloggerpro.com/membership .