Podcasts Archive

Reinventing Yourself as a Creator with Timothy Pakron from Mississippi Vegan

by Emily @ FBP on Sep 1, 2026 in Food Blogger Stories

Welcome to episode 586 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Timothy Pakron from Mississippi Vegan.

Timothy came to food blogging by way of studio art and his passion for fresh produce, not the blog itself. He started sharing his photography and vegan recipes on Instagram first, built an audience there, and landed a cookbook deal before he ever put much focus into a blog. In this conversation, Bjork and Timothy talk through what it looks like to build a body of work around a strong personal point of view, and why story and connection have carried his career from Instagram to cookbooks to now, a second book (Garden Variety), and a thriving blog.

They also chat about the practical side of running a content business today: how Timothy uses AI tools as a strategy partner for auditing and refining old posts, how he’s adjusting to a search and social media landscape that keep shifting under everyone’s feet, and how he thinks about his blog less as a static archive and more as an ecosystem that needs constant tending. If you’re trying to figure out how to stand out with your story or navigate a creative career that has real ups and downs, this episode is for you.

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Why Trust Matters More Than Detection in the Age of AI with Jeremy Carrasco

by Ann @ Food Blogger Pro on Aug 25, 2026 in AI

Welcome to episode 585 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Jeremy Carrasco, the creator behind Jeremy Finds AI and founder of Riddance.

Pop quiz! Can you actually spot AI-generated content if you saw it? Jeremy’s background in live streaming, encoding, and video production gave him an early edge in identifying synthetic content, but as AI videos get more realistic, he explains why that edge is disappearing fast, and why the old advice to simply “train your eye” isn’t enough anymore. In this episode, Jeremy makes the case that the real question isn’t “can you spot AI?” but “do you trust the source?”

He and Bjork get into the difference between acceptable and deceptive AI use, why disclosing your AI workflow might actually build more trust with your audience, and what “human-forward” creation looks like in an increasingly synthetic feed. Jeremy also shares candidly how he uses AI in his own work, and why he refuses to let it touch his creative edge. If you create content in any capacity, this conversation gives you a clear-eyed look at where trust is headed next and what it’ll take to hold onto yours.

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A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Claude as a Food Blogger with Shruthi Baskaran-Makanju

by Emily @ FBP on Aug 18, 2026 in Tech Tips for Food Bloggers

Welcome to episode 584 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Shruthi Baskaran-Makanju from Urban Farmie.

Shruthi Baskaran-Makanju recently made the leap from a successful career in management consulting to become a full-time content creator with Urban Farmie. Her background in business strategy didn’t disappear when she made the switch, and it has become one the most valuable tools in her toolbox, especially when it comes to how she uses AI in her business.

In this episode, Shruthi shares how she’s moved well beyond using Claude as a chatbot and has started treating it as a genuine business partner — delegating tasks, building custom skills, and creating systems that let her spend more time on the work only she can do. If you’ve been curious about AI but aren’t sure how to actually integrate it into your workflow in a meaningful way, this episode is a great place to start.

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Why Jeanelle Castro Thinks YouTube Is the Most Powerful Social Platform for Food Creators

by Emily @ FBP on Aug 11, 2026 in Building Traffic and Growing Your Audience, Recipe Videos

Welcome to episode 583 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Jeanelle Castro from Jeanelleats.

Jeanelle started Jeanelleats ten years ago while still working a 9-to–5 — but she knew she had always wanted to be an entrepreneur, and she always loved making videos. In 2016 she started posting on YouTube, got serious about tracking her metrics and posting consistently, and within a few months her channel started taking off. Today she has nearly 2 million subscribers on YouTube!

In this episode, Jeanelle shares how she built a content system where YouTube is the engine that drives everything else — including her blog traffic, her Google rankings, and her brand deals. She explains how she uses YouTube Shorts to drive traffic to her site (her CTA is simple: “head to Jeanelleats for the recipe!”), and why she believes that the success of a social post and the performance of a blog post are more correlated than most creators realize.

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Building Brand Authority Through PR with Lydia Bagarozza

by Ann @ Food Blogger Pro on Aug 4, 2026 in Building Traffic and Growing Your Audience

Welcome to episode 582 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Lydia Bagarozza.

Have you ever wondered how food creators and brands land coverage in respected publications, and whether that kind of press is even worth chasing? In this episode, Bjork sits down with PR expert Lydia Bagarozza to demystify proactive PR, showing that it’s less about crisis control and more about shaping brand perception and earning credibility through the media. Lydia breaks down how to pitch timely, newsworthy stories to the right editors and producers, and why clear positioning and specific expertise can turn a pitch into a yes.

The conversation also makes the case for PR as a long-term investment. Lydia explains how appearing in respected publications and local news builds social proof, backlinks, and brand signals that feed into SEO, AI visibility, and trust, and she shares go-to tools like Qwoted, Connectively, and Help a Reporter Out for finding real media opportunities. If you’ve been curious about earning press for your brand, this episode is a great place to start!

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What’s Actually Holding Your Food Blog Back in Search with Liane Walker from Foodie Digital

by Emily @ FBP on Jul 28, 2026 in Food Blog SEO

Welcome to episode 581 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Liane Walker from Foodie Digital.

Liane Walker has seen just about every SEO mistake a food creator can make. In this episode, she’s sharing her expertise about the two things that matter most right now for food blogs — getting your technical SEO foundation right and creating content that’s structured to reach the right reader.

One of the biggest issues Liane has noticed time and time again with food bloggers is link spam — something that might seem harmless but can quietly become an SEO success killer. She breaks down exactly what Google considers as spam, when to mark a link as nofollow, and how this is all a part of mitigating risk in search marketing.

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Why Personality Is the New Competitive Advantage with Sam Vander Wielen

by Ann @ Food Blogger Pro on Jul 21, 2026 in Building Traffic and Growing Your Audience

Welcome to episode 580 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Sam Vander Wielen.

This episode digs into the gap between the idea of entrepreneurship and what it actually takes to build a business. Sam shares how she was first drawn to food blogging and online business because they felt like a path to freedom, only to realize she was in love with the outcome, not the daily work required to get there. That realization led her to a better-fitting path: combining her legal background with the creator economy to build a business that helps online creators with legal templates and advice.

From there, the conversation opens up into something deeper: success, “enoughness,” and what actually creates fulfillment. Sam gets candid about major personal hardships, including brain surgery, caring for her father through leukemia, and losing both of her parents, and how those experiences forced her to confront a hard truth: business success and financial growth can solve a lot of problems, but not the personal ones. She and Bjork talk about protecting your time, building with intention, and why leaning into story, personality, and authenticity matters more than ever in an AI-shaped world where purely informational content is easier to replace.

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How Search Is Changing and What Food Bloggers Need to Do About It with Casey Markee

by Emily @ FBP on Jul 14, 2026 in Food Blog SEO

Welcome to episode 579 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Casey Markee from Media Wyse.

If you’ve been feeling like search and traffic have gotten harder to figure out lately — you’re not imagining it. The rules are genuinely changing, and they’re changing fast.

In this episode, Casey breaks down the biggest shift happening in search right now — the move away from the traditional “10 blue links” model toward a semantic, AI-powered model where Google constructs answers from multiple sources and tries to keep users on Google rather than sending them elsewhere. For food bloggers, this means that publishing a well-optimized recipe is no longer enough, and Casey explains exactly what it takes to thrive in the search landscape that’s replacing it.

Bjork and Casey cover the technical fundamentals that still matter (core web vitals, internal linking, structured data), the growing importance of building a content ecosystem and genuine topical authority, and — perhaps most importantly — how to make yourself and your brand visible beyond your website. Casey also walks through what knowledge panels are, how PR mentions and media appearances feed into Google’s knowledge graph, and how a new feature called the “preferred source” button could be a real competitive advantage for food bloggers who move quickly.

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How Josh Gale Grew His Audience to 1.2M+ in Under a Year by Leading with Storytelling

by Ann @ Food Blogger Pro on Jul 7, 2026 in Building Traffic and Growing Your Audience

Welcome to episode 578 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Josh Gale.

In this episode, Bjork interviews Josh Gale, a content creator who has rapidly grown his online presence in the food industry through his blog, The Chef Out West. Josh shares his journey from being a private chef and participating in food competitions to becoming a successful content creator within just a year. He discusses the initial challenges he faced, such as learning to film and edit, and how he overcame the fear of starting something new.

Josh emphasizes the importance of storytelling in content creation, explaining how his personal experiences and passion for food have helped him connect with his audience. He also highlights the role of social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook in his growth, sharing insights on how different types of content perform across platforms.

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How to Stop Relying on Traffic and Start Building a Business with Emily Baksa

by Emily @ FBP on Jun 30, 2026 in Monetizing an Online Food Business

Welcome to episode 577 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Emily Baksa from Craveworthy Copy.

Most food bloggers think about monetization in terms of ads, sponsored content, and affiliate marketing. But what if your content could do something more — actively nurturing readers into buyers and building a business that doesn’t depend entirely on traffic?

In this episode Emily and Bjork dig into the full picture of how to build a content ecosystem that converts — from the copy on your homepage to your email opt-ins to the products and experiences you sell. They talk about why your email list is the single most powerful connection-building tool you have and why you should focus on solving problems and offering solutions for your audience.

Bjork also shares how Pinch of Yum made the leap into selling meal plans and got comfortable with selling — and why starting simpler than you think you need to is almost always the right move.

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