(upbeat music) >> Hey welcome back everybody. Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're at San Francisco International at Gate 54B if you want to stop by and say hello. We're here for Alaska's Elevated Flying Experience launch. It's really an interesting opportunity. Alaska took advantage of the purchase of Virgin to kind of rethink the brand, rethink the branding of the planes, and add a bunch of new amenities. This is the one that you're going to care about more than any of the others, and we're really excited to have the founder and CEO of Salt & Straw the ice cream, Kim Malek. >> Hi! >> Great to meet you! >> Thank you! >> I am a huge fan! >> Aw! I appreciate that. >> I don't know how many hours I've stood in line and burned, waiting to get into your restaurant in Portland. >> Aw, thank you so much! >> So for folks that haven't stood in line for their Salt & Straw, give us a quick update on Salt & Straw, who you guys are, what you're all about. >> Yeah, so we started actually in 2011 as a little push cart which is a big deal in Portland, and we've grown now to 19 shops up and down the West Coast. We make all of our ice cream in 5 gallon batches, so we savor the smallest and we're the largest small batch ice cream company in the world and we're excited to have this new partnership with Alaska. >> Right, so I don't know kind of what the official industry categories are, but you would certainly be like in the super rich premium category. (laughter) Right. Really, really rich ingredients, fresh ingredients >> Yeah >> crazy flavors. >> So, each city that we operate in we make a different menu, so it reflects that city's local flavors, what's going on with the food scene and we make everything in house, so whether it's a brownie or rendering bone marrow, or making gummy bears ourselves, it's all made in house with great great care and love. >> I'm just curious if you have a feel for, you know, what is the formula for your success? Right, it's ice cream. There's a lot of ice cream choices, of course Farrell's was one of my favorite back at Portland >> Aw, I love Farrell's. Yeah. >> and they don't have that anymore at the zoo. But, what are some of the secrets to have, you know, "a commodity product" if you will, it's ice cream, but to build such a passionate following and really have people that are so connected to the product and the brand? >> Yeah, well we feel so fortunate to have this loyal following and I think it's really, you know we invest a lot in earning people's business and earning that attention, and so like I said, we have a different menu in every city that we operate in, we change our menu every 4 weeks, so it's reflective of what's happening locally and seasonally, and then when you come into our store, we try to offer a pretty special experience, so from the store design to the way we take care of people, they can sample through the whole menu. I was just at one of our stores and a customer said this is like a wine tasting, I mean I'm tasting all of these flavors, hearing the stories behind how they were made, and the collaborations that went into it, so we pack a lot into the experience. >> Right and so it's interesting that we are here at Alaska because Ben and the opening talked about really the culture and about people because the seat, it's kind of the same thing, a seat mile is a seat mile, so how do you differentiate your product and your offering, and he talked about values and wanting to work with companies that reflect the similar values. You're here, so tell the people why are you here at the Alaska event? >> I love that he talked about values. I noticed that as well and you know I think that's definitely one thing that we share, is a care for the people first and foremost. I mean, we scoop ice cream, but you know we offer people I think four days of training before they show up to actually start scooping ice cream, and that's all about you know, how to create connections with people, how to have a really special experience when someone is standing in front of you and how to connect. So, you know, we invest a lot in our team and I think that really shines through in the way that they take care of customers and I definitely see that when I fly with Alaska Airlines and it was one of the reasons I was so excited to be able to partner with them. >> Right, so we got to tell the people, so you can now get Salt & Straw on Alaska Airlines. >> Yeah, that's right, so just for a couple of months now we've been offering a little single serve container that we actually developed in conjunction with Alaska Airlines, so they helped us design the packaging, so that it would really fit with the experience that they were offering and then we launched it in the air and we don't really sell ice cream outside of our stores very much, so it was really a big deal to work with them on this project. >> Yeah and I would imagine in terms of the packaging and the experience, you're so dialed into that, that is such a part of your brand that you probably have a lot of, I would imagine initial concerns about making sure that was consistent with the brand that you guys represent. >> Yeah, definitely, I mean we had a lot of conversations about how they were going to handle the product, how they were going to educate their team about the ice cream so they can be communicating it with the people who were flying and they were of course there in spades and it was a really easy conversation to have. >> Alright, well Kim, thanks for, thanks for the ice cream earlier. >> Aw, thank you. >> And thanks for taking a few minutes. Congratulations and safe flying back to Portland. >> Awesome! I appreciate being here. Thank you! >> You're welcome! She's Kim, I'm Jeff, you're watching theCUBE. We're at San Francisco Gate 54B at the Alaska Airlines Better Experience. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)