[00:00:03] Ray Latif: Hey, do you guys listen to Rush? Sure. No. You don't like Rush? No. Good lord. I was going to—okay, because I feel like, you know, in this circle, in this conference room in which we've recorded the podcast, we are similar to Rush in that we are sort of like that holy triumvirate that they are. You got, you know, you got Alex Lifeson, Geddy Lee, and Neil Peart. No? Neil Peart. Can I be in the circle? I can't spin around in my seat?
[00:00:26] John Craven: Oh, forget it.
[00:00:27] Ray Latif: Kraven's not feeling it. All right, this is the BevNET podcast.
[00:00:28] John Craven: You don't even know who those people are.
[00:00:30] Ray Latif: I'm sorry. This is the BevNET podcast. I'm Ray Latif, here as always with John Craven and Jon Landis, not necessarily as always because we've been on the road. We've had to split up here and there of late. We are back in the office filming a session here at BevNET HQ and it's good to be back here. You guys feel the same way? Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I mean, it sounds like it sounds so enthusiastic.
[00:00:50] Jon Landis: A lot of travel.
[00:00:51] Ray Latif: Busy time of the year.
[00:00:52] Jon Landis: Yeah. Beats you down. So it does beat you down.
[00:00:55] Ray Latif: Uh, yeah. So as mentioned, you know, we've been traveling, uh, all over the place and, uh, some further than others. Uh, Jon Landis, you and I were most recently in Atlanta for the national association of convenience stores show the 2016 edition of that. Uh, and that was a pretty entertaining show. I always love that show. Yeah, well, I mean, I won't get into the details about why you like the show so much, but it's pretty interesting to see so many brands that we may have seen, or that we commonly see at Expo East and Expo West, and newly presenting and newly exhibiting at the next show. We saw Watermelon Water, we saw Kavita. Calafia. Calafia Farms, just to name a few brands. Some really interesting and pretty slick. new products that we saw at the show.
[00:01:43] Jon Landis: Yeah. I mean, well, for me too, you know, I love seeing those guys, those, those smaller natural companies breaking into convenience. I know high ball was there too, and this was their second year in a row. It's a great product for convenience. Um, but for me, it's always really exciting to see all the big guys cause we don't see them at the other shows, you know, like Coke, Pepsi and Nestle. And these for me, probably one of the coolest things I saw was the new nest tea, which I think is a huge step in the direction that we've been talking about for so long of better for you products creeping into convenience. But this is a statement. This is them pulling out all of their Nestea products and replacing it with something that doesn't have high fructose corn syrup and doesn't have the same kind of preservatives and everything in it. Brand new bottle, looks great, tastes great. Huge kudos to their team, because I know a ton of market research went into developing this product. And personally, I think they absolutely nailed it. even the fruit line that's a sugar and stevia mix. I really could not taste the stevia at all. I couldn't even detect it. So that was probably all the beef jerky that you ate. The salty, the savory outweighing the sweet or the free cigarettes. No, not anymore. FDA ruled against that. It's crazy.
[00:02:55] John Craven: I remember the old days where there were actual cigarettes. You get a pack as soon as you walk into the place. It was like NACS, all of America's vices under one roof. That's kind of how I would think of it. But yeah, no, it's great to, whatever, I didn't go, but it's interesting to see the evolution of it, which it definitely, you know, over the past couple of years, I think, I don't know, the last one I went to was probably two, three years ago. It's definitely changed quite a bit, right?
[00:03:21] Ray Latif: Yeah. I mean, you know, you mentioned vices, you know, sugar is still a big component. A lot of the beverages they sell in convenience stores and, you know, we still saw a lot of that. You walk through the Coke or Pepsi booth or Pepper Snapple booth, you still see quite a bit of those high calorie, high sugar products. But, you know, there's still a good segment of consumers that drink those products on a regular basis. And, you know, those convenience store operators have got to market and got to, you know, have those products on their shelves. Well, to be clear, I wasn't talking about beverages with the vice.
[00:03:50] John Craven: Oh, I know.
[00:03:52] Ray Latif: I'm just saying sugar is that thing that some people consider a vice. Some people are cutting sugar out of their diets. Anyway, I digress. To your point, Jon Landis, about Nestea, the new package looks great. I like that they've come out with a secondary line of these, they call it real brewed teas. Slow brewed, I think.
[00:04:11] Jon Landis: Slow brewed, yeah.
[00:04:11] Ray Latif: I'm sorry. And they've done a good job with that.
[00:04:14] Jon Landis: I think the point, the major point is, is we see these major companies come out with like line extensions or just one-off products that are better for you. But to pull their existing teeth they've had on the market for like 70 years or something and replace it with something, that's how confident they are in this product. And I think that they should be.
[00:04:32] John Craven: I think it sometimes also speaks to just the reality of a brand like that. It's got a lot of volume, certainly volume that most, you know, entrepreneurial companies would be, you know, psyched to have, but it's also not, you know, the market leader and it's not like an overly innovative brand. So I think, you know, I give them credit for making a change where they probably, to some extent, I would say, don't have a lot to lose, right? And the market's kind of moving forward pretty rapidly. You know, I think what Nestea used to stand for is probably going to be the hardest or biggest challenge for it is just breaking free from that, you know, convincing me that Nestea is quality. I mean, honestly, when I first saw that picture, I was kind of like, there's just no way, and I haven't tried it, so I'll keep judgment until then, but.
[00:05:24] Ray Latif: Yeah, and I should note that all the new products, brand revamps, line extensions that we could possibly find are on our Instagram account. Go to instagram.com slash BevNET and you'll see them all, or actually you can check them out on the homepage as well. We've got a little slideshow for all three days.
[00:05:39] John Craven: It was really great. You suckers were in Atlanta and I was just sitting at home on my couch. playing video games or whatever I do, you know?
[00:05:46] Ray Latif: Hey, you know, Hotland is not a bad place to be. Hey, if you say so. So, Nasty, a big thing for you. I mean, it was great and really entertaining and eye-opening to see all the different coffee brands at NACS and the variety of packages and the ways they're being presented. I mean, the biggest new product introduction perhaps at the entire show was the Dunkin' Donuts iced coffee that is being launched. It's a collaboration between the Coca-Cola company and Dunkin' Donuts. I tried some of the products at the booth. They didn't actually have any actual product. They were just mock-ups that you saw. Exactly what you'd expect. It tastes like, you know, a heavily sugared highly milked or high dairy content coffee. Do you think they're billing that to be the Starbucks killer? Well, I mean, I don't know. I don't think so. I think, you know, this is going to resonate certainly with the core consumer at Dunkin Donuts who gets that iced coffee every day with the four sugars and, you know, the lots of cream or lots of milk, whatever it is.
[00:06:49] Jon Landis: In reference to like Starbucks RTD, the Frappuccinos.
[00:06:52] Ray Latif: Right, yeah. I mean, you know, I think those products aren't as sweet as the Dunkin' Donuts products that I tried.
[00:06:58] John Craven: I mean, it's interesting if you think about it, though. I mean, at least up here in New England where there's a million Dunkin' Donuts, right? I think, you know, Dunkin' Donuts versus Starbucks to some extent is like Coke versus Pepsi. You could say that one product's better than the other or, you know, retail experience is better. I think you just have really like loyal fans that they love their Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks or whatever it might be. And I don't know if that really translates over into like a ready to drink product, especially at this point where I'd imagine that even a Dunkin Donuts drinker, if they want to drink ready to drink coffee, probably, you know, has their product or whatever. But, you know, it's certainly the biggest name in coffee to get into the ready to drink space, probably since Starbucks, though. It was very indulgent.
[00:07:45] Ray Latif: It is very indulgent and all the varieties have milk. All the varieties are blended with dairy. Is there a donut flavor? I mean, that would be kind of cool and it would be appropriate for the convenience store.
[00:07:55] Jon Landis: I mean, if you made, if you made donuts liquid and then flavored them as coffee, I would imagine that's what this would taste like.
[00:08:01] Ray Latif: So nice. There is some of that in there for sure. But what was interesting is we did a podcast with Scott Uzell, stay tuned for that, who is the president of VEB, Venturing and Emerging Brands. He oversees all the brand portfolio for that unit, one that includes Illy. And Illy was, I think, the only coffee brand that Coke had for a while. And now they've got Illy, Dunkin' Donuts, and they also announced, I think it was a couple months ago, that they're launching a new cold brew coffee offering under the Gold Peak brand. So from one, they now go to three, and it's going to be interesting to see how they make that all work. There are some thoughts from Scott if you pay attention or you tune in for that podcast.
[00:08:45] Jon Landis: I mean, you know, ready to drink coffee is tough, right? You're trying to tell someone how they should be consuming their coffee when everybody buys it at a coffee shop and makes it how they want once they get it in the cup. You know, they sweeten it and flavor it and whatever. So, you know, RTD coffee is tough. You got to have a lot of different offerings out there, I think.
[00:09:03] John Craven: I mean, you also have gold peak that's strong at food service too. So I don't know, maybe there's a different angle for that eventually.
[00:09:10] Jon Landis: It's like a European brand, you know, it appeals to different consumers. So, I mean, it's, it's pretty interesting approach. I wonder if, you know, one of them lags behind the other two seriously, what they'd have to do.
[00:09:21] John Craven: But I mean, at this point they're all lagging really far behind Starbucks. So I, you know, I don't know. I have to imagine that Coke making a push behind Dunkin' Donuts is going to quickly eclipse anything that Illy has ever been able to do just because of the immediate like brand awareness now.
[00:09:40] Ray Latif: A few other coffee products that I saw at the show, we saw Forto coffee, which is a cold brew coffee blend that comes in a two ounce shot, pretty powerful stuff. They recently reformulated and revamped their label. Rocket fuel. Yeah, it certainly is. Locke alone was even there. Todd Carmichael and the team were there. Todd was talking to him about the whole cold brew versus cold pressed angle. They're very much a cold press. He said, you know, when people come up to the booth and say, hey, can I have some cold brew coffee? He says, stop him right there, because we're not a cold brew or a cold press coffee. You know, cold brew is a component of a really good coffee, but interesting from him. Bowery was there in full force. They had a monstrous booth, a monster-sized booth.
[00:10:22] Jon Landis: A monster-sized booth. Yeah, their booth was close in size to the Monster booth.
[00:10:26] Ray Latif: It really was. Really, really big. They were definitely making a statement with that size booth at convenience.
[00:10:31] John Craven: How about the Highbrew Protein? You took the words right out of my mouth, John Craven. That was honestly the one I was sort of most intrigued about, kind of knowing that the Dunkin' Donuts product was being released at NACS. Yep. Didn't know about the Highbrew one. Seems pretty interesting that they're adding protein, so what's the deal?
[00:10:49] Ray Latif: I talked to David Smith. We sat down for a video interview. I just keep making these promos for future segments. Yeah, so stay tuned for that. Yeah, and he was talking about, you know, it was something that their customers were asking for. It's a good sort of blend of functions. You get the energy, you get the protein, and in convenience stores it seems like a good fit for sure. He noted that they've got pretty small ACV at this point in convenience stores, but they're really working on that channel hard. So we'll be waiting to see what happens there.
[00:11:17] Jon Landis: A couple of other people at the booth there referenced Rockstar and Monster. And, you know, the Java products that they've seen success with and.
[00:11:25] John Craven: Well, that was sort of, you know, when you were talking about all these coffee products, I mean, the number two, like ready to drink coffee is still an energy drink. Right. So I think it's interesting that, you know, you have most of the startup coffee players so hyper focused on. natural and there aren't many that are kind of going after convenience, you know, certainly aside from high brews.
[00:11:47] Ray Latif: Yeah. And, you know, there's also that rumored coffee prior to becoming from Monster, from Monster. Monster Cafe is what we heard it's going to be called. It wasn't at the show at all. I mean, it might have been behind the booth or sampled to a certain number of folks or select number of folks, but we didn't see it.
[00:12:01] John Craven: You weren't on the list.
[00:12:02] Ray Latif: Yeah. Stay tuned for that, I guess. Speaking of coffee, John Craven, you got some coffee right in front of you. That's coffee from across the pond though. Isn't it? It is.
[00:12:12] John Craven: It's the a Sandows. I think that's how you say it. Cold brew coffee comes in a little a flask bottle. I might've, I might've refilled this.
[00:12:21] Jon Landis: What's that 30 milliliters.
[00:12:23] John Craven: 200 milliliters, so a little under eight ounces. You know, I don't know. This is a product that the liquid itself was quite drinkable, which always is important. Grabbed a few of these while I was over there, but the packaging really just stands out. I mean, I'd seen other people put this on their Instagram feeds when going over to London. So, it was one of those products that I kind of had to seek out.
[00:12:47] Ray Latif: Nice looking package. Now, let's talk about your travels in the great country of England. You were there for, what was it, six days? Something like that. Something like that. That's all of them are. Yeah, I'm sure it was at this point. So, you know, you went over there. Can you give us some insights into what that market looks like at this point?
[00:13:04] John Craven: This is all London-based, did not really tour England or anything like that. But, you know, we certainly have a lot of companies that we're in contact with over here that are startups in the UK. And I think it was sort of going into it, I was kind of wondering, you know, how much of the stuff that we talk about every day would be kind of present over there. And, you know, there's the podcast that I did with Hugh Thomas and Joe Ben of Ugly Drinks that talks a little bit about it. But I think just going into some of these stores, you know, it definitely felt like very parallel to what you see over here. And you know, there are just so many like, startup products that are in the categories that we talk about all the time cold pressed juice and cold brew coffee, even a bunch of kombucha products. On the other hand, the differences, probably the most obvious one is just that the lack of the USDA organic seal and they don't have a seal for it, which I feel like for some companies over here is almost like the reason for existence is, hey, we're organic, whatever. I definitely didn't feel like I saw as much of that. And then there were certain other products that were just more Probably higher in sweetness, you know, certain like juice-based drinks and sodas that I think over here just, you know, again, they probably wouldn't fly right now. And I have no idea what any of these companies are, you know, doing or if they're successful or not. But I thought that was pretty interesting to see that like those products are still out there on the store shelf, like where it's okay to be sweet. Again, they weren't too many of those like badges on the front saying 10 calories or whatnot that you see here.
[00:14:45] Ray Latif: No jokes about dental hygiene in Britain, right?
[00:14:49] John Craven: I think I saw one that was like a doctor something or other, but yeah, not as much of that. If anything, the tea category in ready to drink form felt like it had a lot fewer offerings than over here, which I don't know, maybe that's just because tea is a more serious thing over there. But those were sort of the main takeaways from it.
[00:15:11] Ray Latif: We've seen some brands make their way over here. Cost and Press is the first thing that comes to mind. I think, you know, we've heard of that brand and they came over here in sort of a partnership with one of the former, where did he work? Rockstar. Former Rockstar employee. And we've seen some brands, some US brands make their way over, some very successful, Vitacoco, obviously. More recently, we've seen Drink Maple make their way over there as well. How's that brand doing? Did you see it?
[00:15:40] John Craven: Yeah, I mean, I saw Drink Maple. I think there was another, Maple Water, that was based in the UK, which was interesting. But again, it's hard to really get a sense of what sort of traction that stuff has. You know, I feel like the products that I saw like in people's hands on the streets were, you know, largely sort of more traditional things like a Lucozade or for that matter, like saw a fair amount of people drinking Starbucks, which was always kind of weird. RTD Starbucks? No, just regular like, you know, walking with a cup of coffee, but bottled water, stuff like that. You know, there's certainly a lot of store, like shelf space dedicated to them. Coconut water is another one too. You know, lots of Vitacoco over there, but a couple of startups as well.
[00:16:27] Jon Landis: I think Little Miracles was not UK based, but they were pretty big out there before they came to us. They were.
[00:16:32] Ray Latif: They were really big. I think they still are big in England. That energy drink brand, that's natural energy. I think it's, is it organic?
[00:16:38] John Craven: Tea. Yeah. It's organic. It's tea. Saw a few like facings of that. Didn't really get the sense that it was anything that was really like in wide distribution. But, you know, I don't know, maybe that was a couple of years ago. You know, certainly as we see over here, tastes change pretty quickly. You know, who knows? I think it was also interesting to me that just brands that reached out to me were seem to be hinting at aspirations of bringing their product over here, which is something, you know, I just honestly hadn't sort of thought that much about since we do see brands sometimes come over here. A lot of times it's, you know, through a third party or something like that, but it seemed like something that was high on the priority list for some of these companies.
[00:17:23] Ray Latif: Yeah. Another brand that's UK-based that's made its way over here is Rebel Kitchen. I'm holding one of their beverages in my hand. It's a chocolate milk. I'm sorry, it's a coconut milk-based drink, organic, tasty stuff. Some of this stuff came into the office when we were all out of the office. It's one of a bunch of new products that arrived here at BevNET HQ and that are making their way into the review queue or that will eventually be reviewed and got us into thinking, what makes for a good review? And, you know, we get a lot of questions from brands and brand executives and entrepreneurs about, hey, how can I get my product reviewed and what can I do to make sure it gets a good review and well, can't really answer the latter question. And the review team, the process is actually not made public. Top secret. Top secret stuff. However, you know, just based on the number of products that we've seen in the reviews that we see every day, might be able to give some insight into, you know, how do you present your products in a way that's going to get it the best rating, at least here at BevNET.
[00:18:31] Jon Landis: Anyone want to start? I mean, I mean, the big thing has to be commercial viability, right? So, you know, it's Tate. Everyone thinks taste and packaging and function and these things. But, you know, at the end of the day, the five star reviews that I recall reading are mainstream products, right? So like, yeah, they hit on everything else, but You know, for a beverage to be success, it needs a lot of volume across the country, and you need to have an offering that is viable to a wide range of consumers.
[00:19:04] John Craven: Yeah, although I think for the review process, that's not the only thing. I mean, you know, kind of case in point with that is that you could take something really I don't know, mundane, you know, bottled water or whatever. And, you know, that obviously has, you know, in theory, like, potential to reach anyone. But it's certainly not something that is a wise, you know, product for someone to start right now, just literally like a plain bottle of water. Right. You know, I tend to think of the review process similar to just... a process of evaluating the likelihood of success based on like what we see. And, you know, for me, I often like tell people that there's kind of this really complicated, you know, formula that somebody could probably map out. But it is, you know, I don't know, probably adding up or multiplying whatever the heck it might be like different attributes. You know, some of them would be like innovation, package design, flavor, functionality, market size, target consumer, all of those things where... Price? Price. Yeah. I mean, you can't like just be one thing. And I think that's a lot of the problems with products that don't fare well is that they've just focused in a hyper way on I don't know, some functionality, right? And they're going to be the best and most, you know, doctor, whatever, you know, functional beverage for anything. I don't know, like foot health or something, like an absurd thing, right? Burping, but there you go. But it just, you know, these are the functions you guys come up with.
[00:20:39] Ray Latif: My goodness.
[00:20:40] John Craven: I don't know. I didn't want to offend anybody because if I said something realistic, it's probably already been done. Maybe we'll have an anti, uh, what do you call it? Uh, athletes foot drink out there. Maybe it's in the works, but anyway, uh, geez, anyway, the point being that you can't just have like one component of that. I think, you know, to answer your question of a five star product, you know, I think the other thing with that is just that what's missing from, this whole equation and where, you know, I think if you look back at the things that have received a five-star review, you know, how many of them are actually successful? I don't know. Because, you know, one piece that's always missing is simply that execution, right?
[00:21:22] Jon Landis: When you're reviewing a product, you know, you're not reviewing, like, the management team, right?
[00:21:27] John Craven: And that's a huge piece of the success. That would be pretty interesting if we did that.
[00:21:31] Ray Latif: And as Jerry Kamush noted in a previous podcast about the dirty secret in the beverage industry, at least according to Jerry Kamush, it's completely unknown what's going to be successful. I mean, you might've seen a brand five years ago, you know, buy is an obvious example. You know, I don't think a lot of people have really foresaw the surging unbelievable success that buy is today, a company that may end up selling for $2 billion. When I first saw that Expo West in 2011, I thought, hey, this would fit nicely at Starbucks. I thought that was a good runway for that company. And now they're going to
[00:22:08] John Craven: Well, and that's a great example. I mean, I think if you looked at, you know, the original buy and just, again, looked at the product for what it was, you probably wouldn't really give it many chances of success, but, you know, certainly, and certainly, you know, you have a team that's tremendous at executing and not just in terms of selling the product that they had, but evolving and adapting, and then executing, you know, with that product. And I think there are a lot of products that if you again, you look at what is received, you know, five stars or really high review, or rating, or even, you know, some of our product awards, I mean, there are products that just from their technical merit, look awesome. They taste great, package great, et cetera, et cetera. But I don't know, maybe they told us it was 99 cents, and we're like, wow, that's super awesome. But they just couldn't make any money, went out of business. So I think just in terms of people, I guess if we're going to turn this into advice, I think to some extent, the product and getting it, you know, right and perfect matters, but the ability to adapt and then, you know, execute with it, that's like a whole other skill set, you know, so.
[00:23:21] Ray Latif: Absolutely. You know, before I even, I want to talk just briefly about packaging too, and, you know, package design, but Just from what I've seen in the reviews, you know, the product also has to be on trend. If you came out with like a really innovative energy drink six or seven years ago, you might've gotten a better review than you would today if you came out with that kind of a product because energy is such a tough category. We've seen dozens upon dozens of brands try to get into the segment with innovative formulations, with great packaging, with some sort of hitch, and they just get blown away by the big names in that category. It's just very, very difficult to be successful. And it seems like it's part of the review process as well. It's like, what is the viability in this market with regard to current trends and current players in the market too? I mean, you know, you could say the same thing for a lot of different categories, but. I do want to talk just briefly also about package design, because I feel like it's one of those things that's pretty intuitive, right? A nice looking package is a nice looking package. I mean, that's, you know, if you have some doubts about, you know, clutter, or if you think, you know, there's too much on your label, or if you think that, you know, you can't see the name of your brand or the name of the product easily enough, maybe that's a problem. And maybe you should consider making that so that it's as easily readable and as easily navigatable as it could possibly be. A consumer takes three seconds, tops, and this has been proven, to look at a product and decide whether or not they're gonna pick it up and buy it. So you've gotta grab them pretty quickly and you've gotta be able to be pretty transparent from the get-go. So I think that's definitely something that a lot of brands definitely have some problems with.
[00:25:00] John Craven: Yeah, and I think even just, you know, look, we're not package designers, so I guess we could defer to our other, you know, podcasts with someone like, you know, Fred Hart or whatever.
[00:25:09] Ray Latif: I have designed a few packages. Second grade, I made a nice package for... Your art skills are great, Ray.
[00:25:14] John Craven: I'll give you a gold sticker for that. No, but I think the other thing that a lot of brands just sometimes struggle with is the sort of convention for certain types of products. I say that with, you know, people's choice of color or package, you know, shape, format, whatever. where, you know, I don't know, if you want to make a coffee product, for example, if you made a bright, you know, pink package, like, that might be kind of weird. People don't associate pink with coffee, you know? It's a kind of balance of that. And then there's just the, like, does it look good to the eye? Does it effectively communicate what the product is? Again, color being one of those things. And it just is one of those things that I think is sort of an art form. There are a lot of people out there who try to create packages that, I don't know, I mean, like me, I know how to use, you know, Photoshop. That doesn't mean I could actually design a package, you know? So I think that's definitely something that I feel like brands sometimes cut corners on when they're starting out. And I really feel like that's something that sometimes like in the early, you know, parts of these companies separates them from, you know, or determine success or failure too.
[00:26:21] Ray Latif: Yeah. And you really have to realize that you are going up against most likely some big established players. You start a sports drink. We're looking at it right now. You're probably might, you know, especially a better for you sports drinks. You're going to be going up against Gatorade organic, which we have on the table. They sent us a nice cooler full where they sent us a, what was it like a little mini fridge?
[00:26:40] John Craven: Yeah.
[00:26:41] Ray Latif: And, you know, you see that on shelf, you know exactly what it is. Number one, because the Gatorade logo is so familiar, but you know it's organic because in big letters right in the front of the package, it says organic. So, I mean, you're going up again. If you're an organic sports drink brand and your hitch is in your selling point, your differentiation is all about organic. Well, you've got to make it look better than Gatorade organic, in my opinion. Probably. Yeah. So anyway, any other last minute thoughts?
[00:27:11] Jon Landis: I mean, a lot of this stuff, I think when we talked to we did a podcast in the New Beverage Showdown, how to win that. I think a lot of it resonates there, too. I mean, especially with not always the best product, getting the best reviews or most successful product, I should say. You know, we've certainly seen that in the showdown as well. You know, successful brands get knocked out before the finals. Just the final point would probably be, There's usually some really good information if your product gets reviewed. If you don't get the best review that you were hoping for, it's not the end of the world. Call, we'll talk about it. It's really not the end of the world. These products are constantly evolving. And if your product isn't changing and evolving from production run to production run, at least a little bit, you probably have some bigger issues. And it's not personal, by the way. No, of course it's not personal.
[00:28:02] Ray Latif: It's not intended to be personal. We have the utmost respect. I can personally say we have the utmost respect for entrepreneurs and how hard they work and how difficult it is to be successful in this industry. The review process is intended to critique in a professional way what you have presented to the public. And it's not at all intended to be a personal knock on anything that you do. So please respect that.
[00:28:29] John Craven: I mean, the other thing I would say is that I think I at least speak for those of us in the room here, but we're happy to look at people's product mock-ups or whatever before they go and produce them, which is many times more helpful in that if feedback is given on something that you haven't produced yet, that's certainly a lot more helpful than something that maybe you have pallets full of sitting around. And I realized that's sort of like a much harder and maybe more personal type of thing. But, you know, look, I mean, we're certainly not like consultants or anything, but I'm happy to give free advice.
[00:29:04] Jon Landis: If you don't like your review, you're more than welcome to call and scream your head off at me. It's happened before, it'll happen again.
[00:29:15] Ray Latif: Should we give out Craven's phone number right now? It's, you know, for the advice. The advice that you gave.
[00:29:21] John Craven: It might make my life a little easier. My phone number's on the website, but I don't actually answer my phone. But feel free to email. I'm always responsive to email.
[00:29:29] Jon Landis: It's true. He's good at emailing.
[00:29:31] Ray Latif: All right. That just about wraps up this podcast, but we can't finish the old podcast without talking about what we're drinking this week, some of the favorite stuff, favorite products that we've seen over the last month, actually, because we haven't really, I don't think we've done too many of these over the last month.
[00:29:47] John Craven: No, I've just been sitting here parched because you won't let us drink anything.
[00:29:52] Ray Latif: All right, I'm going to start. I mentioned Rebel Kitchen. They've got this coconut milk that they sent us in an 11-ounce Tetra Pak with a... Do they still call these the Dream Cap?
[00:30:01] John Craven: That's what it's called. It's not a still call. I think there's a TM or a patent probably a couple after that.
[00:30:08] Ray Latif: With a Dream Cap, a screw cap on top. It's good stuff. It's a good little meal replacement. It's got some significant sugar and calories, but if you're looking to replace your meal, it's a pretty good option, I think. And then also Sound has come out, Sound Sparkling has come out with a new, a couple new line extensions. They have a rose tea and they also came out with a green tea. I like this brand, I love these products, good stuff.
[00:30:37] John Craven: I guess I'll go since we're going clockwise or something, whatever direction. Counterclockwise, left to right, whatever. Anyway, I have two of the two products that were from the, London trip already mentioned the cold brew also the ugly water which I have to say is one of those things that You know, really cool packaging, really enjoy the taste. I was really kind of surprised at how many people, when I got back, were like, what was that drink? And they sent some over to our office here. It was wildly popular, so.
[00:31:14] Ray Latif: Gone in 12 hours.
[00:31:15] John Craven: Something like that. Kind of curious to see how that goes. Then on the, I guess, almost what feels like the other end of the spectrum here, I've got this organic Gatorade, which as Ray mentioned, Instead of a press kit, we got a mini fridge full of product that showed up.
[00:31:31] Ray Latif: A G unit, if you will.
[00:31:33] John Craven: A G unit. There you go. You know, I don't know how I feel about this. It's funny. On the one hand, it's... You know, nice to see Gatorade without the color. I think, you know, the kind of negative feedback that I've seen on it so far is that this is bad for organic as a whole. One thing I thought was interesting, I took a bottle of this home and, you know, one of my kids saw it and said, wow, healthy Gatorade. And I'm like, no, organic doesn't mean healthy, you know? And I think that's just sort of symptomatic of what, you know, that negative backlash about this being bad for organic is all about. Forgetting about that, I think it'll be interesting to see how this actually works. You know, it tastes fine. I feel like this tastes like any number of organic or natural sports drinks that we've had over the years. I don't know, A-game, Galazzo, just to think of a few off the top of my head.
[00:32:29] Ray Latif: All since discontinued, unfortunately.
[00:32:31] John Craven: Well, that's kind of the point. So, I don't know if this is just all roads lead back to like 20-ounce bottles of regular Gatorade. I imagine this 16.9-ounce bottle is a little pricier.
[00:32:43] Jon Landis: Do you think if they, if organic doesn't work out, they obviously spent money on this mold. Are they going to release another line with this?
[00:32:51] John Craven: Well, then spending Gatorade, spending money on this mold is like, you know, it's like pocket change, but still getting fries with your steak and cheese for lunch. But yeah, I don't, I don't know. I, I think cool bottle. No, it's a cool bottle. I think it's just, you know, their trend has been like larger and you know, two for five bucks and whatnot.
[00:33:11] Ray Latif: I mean, there's a real feminine vibe to it. It's something you can easily slip into your bag, if you have a bag that is. It's a slimmer kind of grip. I feel like it's definitely going for that female consumer, no doubt.
[00:33:22] John Craven: It's a weird, you know, like when you hold it, it doesn't feel like perfectly cylindrical. Like there's something kind of wrong with it, but it's just like the shape of it. I don't know. I'm really curious to see what this does. I'd imagine that it'll, come out of the gate with some decent numbers for trial consumers, and will it stick? Don't know.
[00:33:42] Ray Latif: You never know. I mean, they had that G Natural series that they launched and quickly discontinued. I think it was within 18 months. Talking to the folks at Gatorade, they really think that this goes far and beyond what natural was all about. So I guess we'll see how it goes.
[00:33:58] Jon Landis: I don't know. I mean, the existence of this product makes me feel like Gatorade is acknowledging that there's something wrong with their product. That's just kind of how I see it.
[00:34:09] John Craven: We'll see.
[00:34:10] Jon Landis: You know, I mean, I'm sure people will buy it right away when they first see it, but I don't know.
[00:34:14] John Craven: All right, so you were drinking the Gatorade too. No, I drank it and then I've been filling it with water. All right, so what else do you have on there?
[00:34:21] Jon Landis: I have Corella bitter melon and green tea. There's no sugar. I think this has stevia in it, but it really doesn't have too much of a bitter aftertaste. It's more just like a green tea. And I think the bitter melon provides some level of sweetness to it without adding any sugar. I don't know. That's the problem. There is this little guy on the back here. It says, watch your sugar. And there's like a little sugar cube with like eyeballs and it's like, don't hurt me. So I, you know, the problem is with this bottle is I just, I guess. The problem is with the bottle is I just don't understand what the product is. I think it tastes good. I do enjoy it. It's very refreshing, and I've drank it with lunch a number of days. I just don't know what it says. Bitter makes better, and there's really no information. And so I'm assuming you have to know a lot about whatever bitter melon is. I'm assuming that's whatever. Is that bitter melon? Yep. That's bitter melon. So there's bitter melon on the front, but it's like a drawing.
[00:35:24] Ray Latif: Well, bitter melon, as long as it's got those two eyeballs, you know, you'll continue to drink it, right?
[00:35:30] Jon Landis: No, do you see the guy? You see the little sugar cube?
[00:35:32] Ray Latif: Oh, that's... It says, watch your sugar, and there's a sugar cube, and he's like... Oh, see, you didn't point out that it said, watch your sugar.
[00:35:37] Jon Landis: I didn't get that at first. Watch your sugar, and it looks like you're gonna, like, step on him, like he's an ant that's scared of getting stepped on.
[00:35:43] John Craven: It's really good that this is audio and not video, because Landis is really getting weirded out by the sugar cube guy.
[00:35:47] Ray Latif: I know, we're getting mad deep on this. We're getting really deep on this. But in any case, you got another small little shot thing going on there.
[00:35:51] Jon Landis: Oh, this has been sitting on my desk for a long time. I've never been brave enough to open it up and try it. So you're going to go for it now? It's called Wake Up Post Lunch Waker Lemongrass flavor. It's 100 milliliter ounce. This is from Tel Aviv, Israel. Oh, I don't. Oh, it's leaking all over. It's just sugar water. That's all it is. I guess I don't like it. And it's, it's really bitter. Cause lemongrass is the sugar cube guy here. Alternative still staring at you. These, these, these two beverages could not be more dissimilar. Uh, this has 10 grams of sugar in a 3.3 ounce shot. And, uh, I'm assuming that it's just sugar like post lunch. Hey, wake up, uh, drink some sugar water and don't fall asleep for another hour and a half. The official review on that one. This is, it's a little strange and it has a weird chart on the back and this is the wake up effect and it shows that you're going to be... That's a lot of copy on the back there. Yeah, and there's like a graph with like arrows and it shows that you're going to be awake longer with wake up.
[00:37:02] Ray Latif: I see, I see.
[00:37:04] Jon Landis: All right. But now I have it all over my hands and it's like dripping down my arms. Getting weird in here. I need to go wash my hands. Can we end the podcast, please?
[00:37:16] Ray Latif: Now I'm going to dry myself. All right, if you've stuck with us, a thousand thanks. I really appreciate all our listeners and it's great to go to NACS and Expo East and hear and get emails from folks who appreciate the podcast and continue to listen to it. So thanks to all our listeners and yeah, stay tuned for much more on the podcast and a ton of coverage still coming from NACS. So stay tuned for that. Thanks again for listening.
