dog food distributor

(playful music) - truffles are just such anelusive, mysterious ingredient. these are the spanishwinter black truffles. they're from aragon. they just have this alluring earthiness quality that i've never tasted before. they kept me totally obsessed with them for almost 10 years now. my name is ian purkayastha,

and i procure hard to find ingredients from around the world. mainly fresh truffles. i'm a dealer, of sorts. i deal truffles out of my car. it definitely has thisunderground element. when i was younger people usedto call me the truffle boy. i started when i was 15, and i'm now 24. i'm constantly on the hunt for identifying

the most desirable regions that produce the very best truffles. they smell really nice,where are these guys from? spain. they've never been successfully cultivated on a commercial scale, and they grow underground, and they're obviously extremelyrare and hard to find. that's why they're worththeir weight in gold.

as soon as the truffle is found, the clock is constantly ticking because there's only aseven day shelf life. they're 98% water. every single day that a truffleis unused, it's evaporating. i still get excited every time i get a new truffle shipment in. they are sent from europe to jfk where they're cleared by fda, usda,

homeland security, and customs. i sort them, i go throughevery single truffle looking for imperfections. and then i basically hop in the car with a box full of truffles, and sell to 90% of the finedining restaurants in new york. everyone from david chang to sean brock to 11 madison park, le bernardin, a variety of michelin-starred restaurants.

during truffle season we import around $200,000 worth of truffles a week. a small amount of truffles could be anywhere from 5,000 to 15,000. we're dealing with quitea lot of valuable product. i'm doing something that i love. it doesn't even feel like work anymore. my warehouse smells like truffles. my car smells like truffles, my apartment.

it's like i can't escape truffles. it's like they're smothering me. which is a great problem to have, i guess.