FF 148 | I Love Poké: come si porta un piatto sconosciuto a 500 milioni di mercato

Poké didn't exist in Italy. Rana Edwards and Michael Lewis brought it to Milan in October 2017, in a 17-square-meter space. No one knew what it was. Today, it's the fifth P of Italian food—panini, piadina, pizza, pasta, and poké—and is worth nearly €500 million. In this episode, Rana explains how she built a category from scratch: her doctorate in pharmaceutical chemistry, her move from New York, her discovery of poké in San Diego, and her return to Milan to search for a dish that didn't exist. But above all, she recounts November 2019: they opened the production center. Four months later, Italy closed. With the center on her shoulders, the stores open, and her pregnant with her second child. From that gym emerged a network of 150 stores, a liquid nitrogen abatement system, and an almost entirely Italian supply chain—from sushi rice to cherry tomatoes. We also talk about female entrepreneurship and what happens when you invent a trend that everyone then copies.