Keeping a 40-year-old family housewares brand alive, with Bobby Djavaheri

If all you knew about Bobby Djavaheri was that his air fryers and bread makers made the list of Oprah’s Favorite Things, you’d assume this was a neat little ‘how I built my business’ story.

The reality is a lot messier.

One year, Bobby and his team at Yedi Houseware Appliances sold more than 50,000 air fryers in a single Black Friday promotion.

But another time, “60 Minutes” featured him in an empty warehouse explaining how freight costs had jumped from $2,000 to $35,000 per container — and that one of his containers had fallen off a ship, causing more than a million dollars in profit to disappear.

Same business. Same family name. Different outcome.

This episode of Beyond the Register is about how Bobby stayed with it in between. Here are a few of the key takeaways.

Soon after we started the conversation, Bobby’s dad quietly walked in to give Bobby a bowl of lentil soup.

His father is 93. He’s an immigrant who lived through post-war Germany, built Yedi from porcelain and fine china into a real business, and spent decades flying to Japan, Korea, Italy and later China to source product.

Bobby watched it all as a kid:

• Trade shows and booth set-ups
• Late nights and jet lag
• Negotiations over a single penny, which mattered because they applied to a purchase of 100,000 units

So when a pandemic choked the ports and tariffs later hit 145% — with containers doubling and tripling in cost — he wasn’t just fighting for a line of SKUs. He was fighting for his dad’s life’s work and for his own kids, who now watch him in the same way he watched his father.

“There’s a lot more that goes into being a small business owner than anyone has ever imagined,” he said. “Every day is something new and it is never ending. It makes you sometimes contemplate, ‘Should I just be an employee somewhere instead of an employer?’”

Facing what he calls “embargo-level” tariffs, Bobby’s import bills jumped from a few hundred dollars into the thousands or tens of thousands per container.

Rather than pretending this would all blow over, Bobby adjusted:

• Implement SKU rationalization — In plain English: he cut anything that couldn’t survive under the new tariffs. Entire product lines went away.
• Shift from ‘hero’ appliances to workhorses — Big, bulky, high-ticket items such as air fryer ovens were still popular. But the items’ landed costs plus tariffs made them a greater risk. So Bobby shifted his focus onto plates, bowls, mugs, espresso cups and saucers. Less risk; still real value.
• Accept the limits of pricing power — Consumers would only tolerate so much without curtailing demand. So don’t try to make the impossible work. Change the game.

The process wasn’t fun or easy. But Bobby decided that wishing tariffs away wasn’t a workable strategy.

On the positive side, there’s Bobby’s Oprah story. Yedi has been on Oprah’s Favorite Things around a dozen times. Mugs. An air fryer oven. Bread makers.

What I loved is how un-magical that path really was:

• The relationship started years ago — Bobby met Adam Glassman, creative director of O, The Oprah Magazine, at a trade show when he was 16, and they became family friends. Known for having Oprah’s ‘ear,’ Adam loves small businesses and has kept in touch with Yedi.
• Oprah’s team doesn’t just drop a link and vanish — Bobby shared how they select you, walk through what success will look like and help you prepare. Demand projections. Inventory. Timelines. The unglamorous stuff.
• The founder still ends up taping boxes — During COVID, Bobby was in the warehouse personally packing thousands of bread makers because of staffing protocols. He loaded them into his Ford Raptor, drove to FedEx and then went home and stripped down outside so he wouldn’t bring anything back to his five-month-old son.

It’s a good reminder: big exposure isn’t a finish line. It’s a multiplier on your operations, good or bad.

The supply chain crisis of 2021 was the other extreme. For Bobby:

• Over 100 containers were in motion worldwide
• Freight costs jumped from about $2,000 to $35,000 per container
• A holiday promotion was ready with thousands of backorders
• One container literally fell overboard in rough seas

His warehouse, which had never been empty, was suddenly bare. That image ended up on “60 Minutes” as an illustration of the crisis. On camera, he called the freight companies “pirates of the sea.”

When we talked about that period, he didn’t sugarcoat it. “I earned money I never thought I would, and then lost it,” he remarked.

I asked him what advice he would give another operator if something like that happened again. His answer was simple, but also a little uncomfortable, “Sit the next one out,” he said. “If I see it coming again, I’ll either sit it out or load up on inventory ASAP.”

Not every storm is meant to be sailed through. Some should be avoided altogether.

Bobby’s family didn’t wake up one day and decide “Let’s go make everything in China.”

They followed manufacturing as it moved. Porcelain in Japan. Rice cookers in Korea. Flatware in Italy. Glassware, also in Japan.

Then the Chinese industrial revolution happened. The factories in Japan, Korea, Italy and Germany closed. Production shifted.

For the first 10 years, Bobby hated going to China. He expected his own mindset to be mirrored back across the table. It wasn’t. Eventually, he realized the problem wasn’t them. It was the lens he was using.

He changed his expectations, adjusted how he communicated, and over time, built real relationships. Today, he’ll tell you some of his closest friends are the factory partners he used to dread visiting.

The larger point: it’s easy to shout, “Just build it here” from a distance. It’s very different when your category literally has no domestic manufacturing capacity left.

Near the end of our conversation, I asked Bobby what keeps him going. He talked about his dad, who still brings him soup. His two sons, who watch him in that multi-generation tradition. His wife.

Bobby’s story is a good reminder that behind every ‘favorite thing,’ every Black Friday headline, and every nicely merchandised end cap, there’s a person doing ‘invisible work’ to keep things moving.

Tariffs. Freight. Empty warehouses. Oprah. FedEx runs. And a family name on the door.

If you’re an operator carrying that weight, I hope this episode makes you feel a little less alone and gives you a few ideas you can use right now. Because the truth is, there are a lot more Bobbys behind the register than most people realize.