Dad, Daughter Bring Peachy Innovation to Podcast
Four episodes in, Jeff and Julia Levy are holding a launch party of "Peach and Prosperity."
A Jewish father-daughter team has launched a podcast to celebrate innovation in the melting pot of metro Atlanta.
Jeff and Julia Levy feature local entrepreneurs on their show, “Peach and Prosperity.”
“We’ve always liked talking to people and finding out their stories. Now we have a way to document that, and it’s been really fun,” Julia said.
Podcasts are digital recordings people can listen to online, through phone apps or with downloads. Most, like the Levys’ podcast, are conversations. As Julia said, they’re an old-fashioned way to get content, like a radio show, but with a modern twist.
Julia and Jeff meet entrepreneurs at Ponce City Market, visit vendors at the Marietta Square Farmers Market and go to pitch night at Switchyards Downtown Club. They also attend meet-up groups and networking events.
The two found bread baker Thomas Sergio, the founder of Olde World Artisan Bread Co., at the Marietta Square Farmers Market and featured him on their first episode, “Bread and Atlanta.”
Sergio is German and Italian, and bread was a staple in his home. At age 10, he became his family’s onion chopper. At 14, he woke up early to knead dough.
He now makes 60 European breads from scratch.
“We as a family have fallen in love with his bread,” Julia said.
Jeff and Julia genuinely want people to know about these inspired entrepreneurs and their unique products. The podcasts are a form of publicity to these entrepreneurs, an aid to “help expand their business,” Jeff said.
The Levys also met Lauren “Big Mama” Janis, the founder of Big Daddy Biscuits, at the Marietta Square Farmers Market. Janis meets her regular customers — dogs — at her booth. She offered 8-year-old Dexter to do a taste test of a biscuit, and he crunched into the microphone.
Janis also offers Furtune cookies to celebrate the year of the dog. Owners can see that the fortunes pertain to the dogs, one of them being “the cat did it.”
The Levys’ podcasts are strategically edited. Jeff and Julia do not publish just audio from an interview, but instead weave in company information and musical interludes, Julia said.
The podcasts must “sound good to the ear,” Jeff said.
Each episode takes five to 10 hours to edit, and Julia said she and her father are “firm believers in narrative storytelling.”
They launched “Peach and Prosperity” in February and had published four episodes by June 10.
To celebrate their own entrepreneurial effort, the father and daughter are hosting a launch party at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 20, at co-working space WeWork at Colony Square in Midtown. The party will include clips of podcasts, podcast bingo and a raffle for tickets to the Alliance Theatre.
Past and future podcast subjects are expected to attend, as may “anyone who wants to celebrate Atlanta, the state of Georgia and the awesome innovation that is happening here,” Julia said.
The innovative vendors at the party are due to include NOLA Girl Brownies, Big Daddy Biscuits, Savannah Bee Co., SweeTricia’s granola, Just Add Honey Tea Co., kombucha brewer Mighty Bucha, cardboard furniture company Built out of Paper and peanut butter maker Georgia Grinders.
The free “Peach and Prosperity” podcast is hosted by Anchor, an independent podcast platform, and can be listened to on iTunes, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, RadioPublic and Castbox.
Julia said she grew up listening to NPR in the car with her dad. She said she and her dad are the perfect duo, and starting the podcast has been special because it is “really awesome to do it with my dad.”
What: “Peach and Prosperity” launch party
Where: WeWork, Colony Square, 1175 Peachtree St., Midtown
When: 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 20
Admission: Free; register by June 19 at bit.ly/2l3Tut4
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