Food Innovation With Taco Bell's Brett Pluskalowski

The Dave Chang Show

The Ringer

Society & Culture, Arts, Food

4.8 • 8.6K Ratings

🗓️ 24 November 2025

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today, Dave lives más. Dave is joined by Brett Pluskalowski, senior manager of food innovation at Taco Bell. Dave creates a new dish that he hopes will one day make it to the Taco Bell menu, while the duo talks about how Taco Bell innovates, what makes a dish resonate, and how to scale a new recipe to thousands of restaurants. Dave finishes by answering an Ask Dave about music. Learn more about Taco Bell: https://www.tacobell.com/ Learn more about Cafe Boulud: https://cafeboulud.com/nyc/ Learn more about Kahala Management: https://www.kahalamgmt.com/ Learn more about Cold Stone: https://www.coldstonecreamery.com/index.php Learn more about Good Humor: https://www.goodhumor.com/us/en/home.html Learn more about Klondike bar: https://www.klondikebar.com/us/en/home.html Listen to the Song Exploder with Dave and host Hrishikesh Hirway: https://songexploder.net/david-chang Learn more about The Sphere: https://www.thesphere.com/ Host: Dave Chang Guest: Brett Pluskalowski Majordomo Media Producer: David Meyer Majordomo Media Coordinator: Molly O’Keeffe Spotify Producer: Felipe Guilhermino Editor: Stefano Sanchez Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey Harry.
0:00.7	Hello mate.
0:01.5	Got any tips for the football?
0:02.8	Your best bet is to head over to Bet Victor.
0:04.9	They're giving new customers a terrific welcome offer. If you bet a minimum of £10, they'll give you £30 in three bets. Oh, that's a steel of a deal. It's a good darn deal that'll make your squirrel for real. Neil? My name's not Neil. I know, bet it rhymes. Listen to Harry and make your best bet on the football at Betvictor.
0:23.4	18 plus opt in best bet on the football at BetVictor.
0:23.3	18 plus opt in and bet on any football marketing at odds of evens or greater no, cash out
0:27.0	seven-day expiry terms and conditions apply.gamblerware.org.
0:29.8	You might want to stay tuned for today's podcast because I'm going to attempt to do something
0:34.0	that our guest has no idea that is in store for them. I'm going to try to
0:39.2	put a menu item on for Taco Bell because we have the head of R&D. Brett plus Kowalski. Yes,
0:48.2	Brett plus Kowalski. I did it. That is his name. He is the head of R&D for Taco Bell. And he has no idea what's in store for him because I don't know what the fuck I'm doing either. So stay tuned.
1:03.0	Welcome back to the Dave Chang Show part of the Ringar Podcast Network presented by major demo media. Thank you. Yolot Tango as always. I mentioned at the top we have the head of R&D for Taco Bell.
1:12.7	His name is Brett Plus Kowalski.
1:15.8	That is the fourth time I've done that successful and it's made my day.
1:19.6	I feel very, very happy about that because that's difficult for me to pronounce.
1:23.8	But he's coming in from Irvine, which is where the Taco Bell test kitchen is.
1:28.3	And listen, I haven't eaten a lot of Taco Bell in my life.
1:31.4	Maybe I've had like a Meximelt or one of those things here or there because my wife really
1:36.0	loves Taco Bell, especially when she was expecting with our kids.
1:40.0	She loved those flavors because I feel like a lot of people grew up eating Taco Bell.
1:44.3	I didn't really eat Taco Bell growing up as as a kid I ate a lot of it when I was in college
	...

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