It’s about how we can become healthier, how we can be happy, how we can build community and how we can just become more inspired.
InBUSINESS spoke with Steve Flynn, one of the happy pears twins and host of the Happy Pear Podcast about making fruit and veg sexy and the joy of conversation without any distractions.
Q: Could you tell us about The Happy Pear and why you created this podcast?
A: The Happy Pear started 16 years ago, in 2004, with a dream of using business as a vehicle for social change to encourage people to eat more fruit and veg, to live a healthier life, happier life and to build a community. The podcast is a wonderful opportunity to have a longer form conversation with someone, to connect with others around topics and to share this with other people who want to listen to it.
Q: With the current Covid-19 restrictions, why do you feel this style of podcast appeals to listeners?
A: It’s about how we can become healthier, how we can be happy, how we can build community and how we can just become more inspired.
Q: The Happy Pear podcast’s mission is to make fruit and veg sexy, do you feel that people’s approach to food has changed during this pandemic?
A: It has and it hasn’t – the single biggest thing people can do for the climate is to eat a plant-based diet. One of the leading causes of illnesses is lifestyle and that’s down to diet. Many people have started to cook at home and to eat more plant-based foods and for other people, it’s a stressful time, so they’re turning more to junk food.
Q: What has been your most interesting discovery with the podcast so far?
A: It’s rare that we sit down and have like a deep one-to-one, fully present conversation with someone – with no phones, no distractions, so I’m really enjoying just how visceral it is, how real it is and how to ask the questions you always wanted to ask.
Q: What are the challenges you face producing a podcast?
A: There are more and more podcasts today, so one of the challenges is to make sure ours is unique, different and has its own voice, so we’re still working on all of that.
Q: Who are you looking forward to appearing on the podcast?
A: We’re interviewing Canadian singer Bryan Adams and I can’t wait for that. I’m also really excited to interview Dr Zach Bush.
Q: What can we expect from The Happy Pear in the future?
A: We’re working on a local organic regenerative farm, so that’s really exciting. We have a farm where we grow microgreens, but this would be more than one to two acres and the goal is to be able to come up with a model that will help inspire others to grow using similar methods, as in organic and regenerative styles of farming so we’re very excited.
