[00:00:10] Mark Rampolla: Hello, and thanks for tuning into the Top Podcast for the food and beverage industry Taste Radio. I'm editor and producer Ray Latif, and you're listening to episode 181, which features an interview with Alan Murray, the CEO of probiotic food and beverage brand GoodBelly. Tune in on Friday, September 27th for episode 53 of our Taste Radio Insider Podcast, when we're joined by Mark Rampolla, the founder of Zico Coconut Water and co-founder of venture capital firm Powerplant Ventures. We joined us for a conversation about nurturing positive habits in life and business. Just a reminder, if you like what you hear on Taste Radio, please share the podcast with friends and colleagues. And of course, we'd love it if you could review us on the Apple Podcasts app or your listening platform of choice. There's an old saying that leaders are born, not made. That might be true, but even for the most innate leaders, would it be helpful to have a manual to flip through every so often? Alan Murray thought so. As a young executive working for carton manufacturer Tetra Pak, Alan wrote a guide for people in similar roles about how to lead effectively and position themselves for success. The information served as a foundation for his career, in which he became the CEO of Tetra Pak North America, followed by his current role as the CEO of GoodBelly, a pioneering brand of probiotic drinks and food. In the following interview, I spoke with Alan about his approach to leadership, how to manage people that might be smarter than you, why it's important to have a global perspective, and the three things he believes are critical for CEOs to master. Later he discussed the evolution of the probiotic food category, how GoodBelly has refined its positioning and communication strategy, and what elicited the company's partnership with General Mills. Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. I'm at Expo East 2019 here in Baltimore, Maryland. Sitting in front of me now is Alan Murray, the CEO of GoodBelly. Alan, thanks so much for being with me.
[00:02:08] Zico Coconut: Hey, good to be here in Baltimore, a nice warm town at the moment and looking forward to the show, but also looking forward to chatting to you, right?
[00:02:16] Mark Rampolla: I'm really excited about this because you and I have talked many times over the years. This is the first time I think we've had just like this face-to-face kind of interview though, or at least conversation. I feel like we're always standing and walking and talking, but never really had an opportunity to sit down and chat. Let's do this thing. Indeed. Innovation has been part of your career since pretty much day one. I want to go back a couple of years though to your education. You studied biochemistry and applied stats as an undergrad. How does that translate into a career in the food industry?
[00:02:55] Zico Coconut: Yeah, good question because I do find the scientific side of what we do in probiotics absolutely fascinating. I mean, you've got all these little microorganisms swimming around in your gut and they're sending out molecules when a bad guy comes in and they're communicating with each other, gathering the forces, attacking the bad guy. And understanding that from a molecular biology basis is just a fascinating study. So I'm able to stay abreast of what new scientific developments are coming up. I can read the papers and understand them, but I wouldn't say I'm a scientist. In fact, I wouldn't say I was ever a really good scientist.
[00:03:36] Mark Rampolla: Was that the trajectory you envisioned when you first graduated from college though?
[00:03:41] Zico Coconut: Yeah, I saw myself utilizing a scientific background and moving into business from there. And you know, at the University of Cape Town, where I graduated, we had all the studies on one campus, so you interacted with a lot of students from different areas. I do always like to point out, Ray, when people say, yeah, University of Cape Town, that sounds like something from Africa, that we did do the first, world's first heart transplant. in 1967, beat the Americans by, you know, six months or so. So let's have some respect here, okay?
[00:04:18] Mark Rampolla: It's all respect on this side of the table.
[00:04:20] Zico Coconut: Was it a human heart? Was it human-human? Yep, yep. Wow. That was the first one ever done, was in Cape Town at my university. That's amazing.
[00:04:27] Mark Rampolla: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell me a little bit about your first job. You were at Unilever.
[00:04:31] Zico Coconut: Yeah, I mean, the first proper job was Unilever. The first job as a student was actually chasing hot air balloons or balloons with nitrogen in them, tracking them over the oceans to try and correlate wind direction to sea catching of fish. So the reason I love that job was you were doing it on the beach and you could surf in between the measuring. So you'll see the surf theme comes back throughout our chat.
[00:04:59] Mark Rampolla: You still surf?
[00:05:00] Zico Coconut: Yeah, very actively.
[00:05:01] Mark Rampolla: Wow. Yeah. So you must like coming to Santa Monica for BevNET Live.
[00:05:05] Zico Coconut: Although sometimes the waves aren't really big there.
[00:05:09] Mark Rampolla: Really?
[00:05:10] Zico Coconut: The time of the year that we go out, there doesn't seem to be much swell. But I get out on a sup every time and paddle around the little reef there. And it's part of my training to get me ready for the South Africa trip, which normally starts in the second week of December. So I always kind of like coming out there. I can get on the water, get the feel of it. Where's the best place in the world to surf? My favorite spot would be in the Eastern Cape in South Africa, right next to Jay Bay. Very well-known spot, nice waves, nice walls, not too many people out there. All right. And I'm a local, so that always helps because people respect the locals.
[00:05:45] Mark Rampolla: I saw Point Break, so I know what you're talking about. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. Getting back to Unilever.
[00:05:52] Zico Coconut: Yeah, that first job. So my first job was as a scientist working with the incorporation of enzymes into cold water detergents to attack protonaceous stains. And before you start yawning, Ray, we're going to stop right there in terms of... I'm at the edge of my seat right here.
[00:06:12] Mark Rampolla: Fascinated. Yes, literally.
[00:06:14] Zico Coconut: I'll tell you what was more exciting, though, was how did I get the first job, OK? So I was looking to join one of three companies, companies that I call university companies with great management training and who can put you through different disciplines, international aspects as well. And so these... companies came to the local universities in South Africa, and they would interview people, and then they'd go to 10 universities, they'd interview 10 students, and then invite the 10 that they liked the best to their campus. And generally, you were up against about 100 other kids who were interviewing in this process. And I felt I had little chance, probably wasn't gonna be the smartest kid in the 100. And they'd invite you to the campus for four days to do psychological tests and play games. And then they'd examine you and scrutinize. And then at the end of that, they'd just pick 10 guys and gals. So what I decided to do was, instead of giving them the four days, I said, hey, I'm a serious student. and I can give you four hours. So I'll fly up from Cape Town to Durban. You just line up the four most important interviews. We'll do those, and if you can make up your mind with those four, then that's good. If not, this is not the place for me because I don't have four days to mess around playing psycho games. The gambit paid off. So I somehow landed up being one of the 10, and that's how we got started.
[00:07:45] Mark Rampolla: That is amazing. Do you still have that same mindset where time is as valuable a resource as you believe it to be?
[00:07:54] Zico Coconut: Well, I think that was probably just as much about differentiation as it was about time saving, because I felt that if I was put up against 100 other candidates, how do you stand out? And one way of standing out is saying I'm only available for a short time. So it was more an exercise, I think, of differentiation than time efficiency. Wow.
[00:08:19] Mark Rampolla: And then you stayed with Unilever for eight years? Ten years.
[00:08:22] Zico Coconut: I was whipped off to Holland pretty shortly, I think about two years into the career. They had some international management development program and put me out there. And it was a fascinating experience. The Dutch weren't always as welcoming as you might have hoped because you were taking one of their jobs and you became the boss of people who thought they should have got the boss job. So it wasn't always a welcoming experience, but it made me a lot tougher and I learned a lot in the process.
[00:08:54] Mark Rampolla: You've managed a lot of people over your career. We'll get to Tetra Pak and Goodbelly in a moment. But you said a couple of things that reminded me of recent LinkedIn posts that included you, which is about managing people that are smarter than you. Now, Alan, you are a very intelligent person, and I can only imagine that the people you manage are extremely intelligent people. How do you lead an environment like that?
[00:09:17] Zico Coconut: Yeah, I think The way I rolled into that was going from being a scientist into a marketing role, because I think they discovered fairly early on that I wasn't a really good scientist. So they put you in marketing. One of the brands we had was a brand called Omo, O-M-O, and it was a cold water detergent for hand washing, largely in rural areas. And the purchasing audience, the consumers were largely illiterate as well. And so we would have a picture of the dirty laundry, then the lady dipping it into the Omo detergent solution, and then the clean laundry going from left to right, which works really well in the southern parts of Africa. But as you head up north in Africa, where they start reading from right to left. Of course, you had a picture of the clean laundry. They dipped it into the Omo and out came the dirty laundry. So as you're gathering here, Ray, I wasn't a really good marketeer, which is why I got pushed into general management. And at a young age, you're managing people, most of whom are much older than you. I think the first team I managed, they were in their 50s and 60s and I must've been in my early 30s. And so you're always managing people who are more experienced and smarter than yourself. In those days, you know, you move from there into other general management roles and you're running a company, 100 million dollars or so. Of course, the finance guy, the legal guy, marketing sales, they're all going to be far better experts in their areas than you are. So your role then becomes to lead, to set direction and to be a champion for them and to remove obstacles so that they know what they have to do. So one of the most important things is if you get everybody rowing in the same direction and people are clear about where we're going, the likelihood of getting there is always much greater. And when I was a young CEO dealing with people who are older and experts in their areas, it was very similar to now where I'm an old CEO and a marketing department whose average age is probably early 30s. They are absolute experts in the area. How can I possibly stay totally in touch with what's going on digitally? So you have to just encourage, try, give people the rope, the freedom to do stuff, and then just put those checks and measures in to see that we're on track and we're doing what we try to achieve.
[00:12:01] Mark Rampolla: Sounds like a lot of it's about trust. Yeah, always. Can you trust though, without having a clear understanding of the department that you're leading?
[00:12:11] Zico Coconut: I think that the way to do that is the old Ronald Reagan trust and verify formula, where you set certain measures, KPIs, whether you measure them on a monthly basis, quarterly basis, this is what we're trying to achieve, this is how we're gonna measure it, this will be the definition of success. And then if you follow up on those, getting the right parameters is so important, following up on those allows everybody to see where we need to realign or put more emphasis. When did you first become a CEO?
[00:12:43] Mark Rampolla: Oh, probably early thirties, mid thirties, something like that. That's pretty young to be a CEO. And it was with Tetra Pak?
[00:12:50] Zico Coconut: Yeah.
[00:12:50] Mark Rampolla: A specific region of Tetra Pak?
[00:12:52] Zico Coconut: I was running one particular country. And so we called that the CEO because you were basically detached from the head office. You might once a quarter check in, but you ran, you know, you had your own production, technical service, marketing sales. couple of hundred people and no one checked up on you. So you were basically running your own company. Were you ready for the role at the time? I was very ready. I felt that I had learned a lot from my bosses. I'd learned a lot about what I didn't want to be like as a boss, but I was very ready to get moving. And I let them know that. In fact, what I did was I told them in January, whatever year it was, that I would be doing a new job within six months. either in the company or outside of the company, but I would be leading a company within six months.
[00:13:44] Mark Rampolla: This is at Unilever or Tetra Pak?
[00:13:45] Zico Coconut: That was at Tetra Pak. Yeah. And so I got offered a really attractive job, strangely enough, in Paris with L'Oreal, the shampoo and cosmetics company. And when I advised Tetra Pak that I would be leaving shortly, they accelerated my career path, let's say.
[00:14:08] Mark Rampolla: You're not shy about giving ultimatums to your bosses, are you? Or your potential bosses, that is.
[00:14:13] Zico Coconut: Well, the way I put it, you know, early on in January is I said to my boss, I'll be doing something different in six months time. And I sold my house and he said, what the hell you sell your house for? I said, well, I can't be constrained by geography because I'm doing something different. I said, your job is to look internally. I'll look externally and one of us will come up with something. And it was an interesting story. I flew down to Switzerland where the head office was, and it's probably better not to elaborate on that discussion. This was what, 20 years ago? It was 20 years ago. Inquiring minds want to know, right? Yeah, but it's advice that I think is really dumb. You never know if it's dumb until... I would not suggest people do this. You would not suggest people do this? No, what I did. So I told them that I would be going to a new job and I had 10 days to confirm, to make that decision. This was the Paris job. And they said, well, okay, we'll give you something senior within the next year and that should be fine. And I say, well, let's work around the definition of something senior. I want to be a country manager, what we call a CEO. And if we can shorten that period to six months. So the HR dude said, okay, we'll do that. Within six months, you'll be CEO in one of the countries. And then I said, well, wait a minute, wait a minute, you know, I'm not talking like Kazakhstan or Albania. So it's gonna be one of these five countries. So he said, well, we got people in those five countries. We can't just kick them out. I said, yeah, some of them are incompetent. You know it, I know it. Perhaps we need to move some people on. So he said, OK, it'll be in one of those five countries or something similar within six months. So I said, perfect. All we need now is someone else from the senior leadership team to come down and shake my hand, because if you get hit by a bus tonight, I said no to Paris, so go and find somebody and explain to them the situation. So they found the SVP of Sammingweide, and he came down, he said, this is really unusual, and I said, listen, if you think you're doing me a favor, don't do it. This is mutually, we're doing each other a favor here. If you think you're being nice to me by doing this, don't do it. I'm fine. I'm off to Paris in 10 days time. So as long as we understand that, we can have a handshake, we moved on. And within three months, I had the job I wanted. Which job was that? I was sent back from Holland to South Africa to go and manage a turnaround situation there. Yeah.
[00:16:53] Mark Rampolla: I don't think that's bad advice because you had a backup. I mean, you had the other job.
[00:16:57] Zico Coconut: Yeah, but don't threaten. 99% of the time it doesn't work. It's not a good idea. Has someone done that to you?
[00:17:07] Mark Rampolla: The mischievous face. A long pause. That I'm looking at right now. No, I don't think so. Okay. You know, confidence is clearly important and the fact that you were confident in your ability to lead went a long way, it sounds like. It's also interesting because I think there's a lot of folks who are in the industry, a lot of seasoned executives that feel like they should be in a CEO role or in a more elevated leadership position, how did you prepare yourself for that role? How did you prepare yourself for not just leadership, but leadership of an entire country per se?
[00:17:40] Zico Coconut: I think you can prepare yourself by observing what others are doing and sort of de facto taking the role where you are now. And then you head out. And I remember sitting at Heathrow Airport with the boss of the region there. And we're about to fly out from Heathrow to Cape Town. And he's going through the financials with me. And he's pointing out that of the 40, 50 countries that he was responsible for, South Africa was the worst performing in every single financial metric. But now you've already said yes. So you've got to fake it till you make it and get out there and then really go about learning from the people who've been there for a long time. And I don't think you can 100% anticipate what's coming at you, but as long as you're receptive to listen and learn. In fact, I wrote a manual called Your First CEO Job. because I was only in South Africa for a couple of years and then moved off to the Czech Republic. And I suddenly noticed I was doing it all again. And I thought, this is annoying, where's the manual? So I wrote the manual on how to get started in your new job as a leader. This is internal or just for any? It was internal, it was taught at some universities, so I did case studies stuff. And it was about listening, learning, and leading. in that order. And so I had a very structured approach to how I would go about listening. Like when I moved to the U.S. to run the U.S. organization, I'd either sit at the reception desk and just greet people as they came in and talk, or I'd go hang at the coffee machine. because that's where people are. And the first question is, what's this company trying to achieve? And then by gauging the answers that you get to that, you see what sort of alignment there is. Because if you're getting disparate answers, then people are rowing in different directions. There's no way the boat's gonna go where you want it, because people don't know where there is. So it just starts like that, and then you gather information and having a ton of respect for everybody who's been there a long time and knows a lot more than you do.
[00:19:46] Mark Rampolla: What do you do when someone disagrees with leadership decisions who is not in a leadership role? I mean, that happens all the time where you have employees who complain about the direction. They say, we shouldn't be doing this, or we shouldn't be doing that. I don't know why this guy's in this job, or he's doing everything wrong. Did you hear some of these things when you were at the coffee machine?
[00:20:05] Zico Coconut: Let me give you an awful example of this. So I land up in the US 10, 15 years ago, whenever it was. I'm running an organization that's maybe a billion dollars. The first question, my very first management meeting, I'm sitting there, two guys in the management team wanted the job that I'd got. One guy stands up, he's about 58 years old, big guy, booming voice. First thing he says is, hey, before we get started, I see you just come from Czechoslovakia, which I checked on the map, it's roughly the size of Iowa. So tell us, what exactly is it that you're gonna teach us here? Direct confrontation, direct challenge, the very first meeting. Wow. Okay, game on. You ended up firing the guy, didn't you? I'm not going to answer that, Ray. I mean, it was a little silly to challenge someone who is the new authority who definitely can't be fired because they've just been put there by all the superiors. So it was a silly move, but normally those sort of things are rooted in some sort of insecurity. And so the big issue was to uncover the insecurity and then find the talents that could be deployed in a way that was not confrontational.
[00:21:21] Mark Rampolla: So can you turn a person like that when someone has that kind of attitude? I mean, is there an approach that you would suggest for leaders in your position?
[00:21:32] Zico Coconut: What do you look for when you're in a change situation is you look for those people who are strong advocates of the change and able to carry it with you. And you need a couple of those champions. The big body of people will follow if they see those leaders moving in that direction. And it's formal and informal leaders. You need to identify them. Someone who overtly challenges you like that, it's easier to deal with because it's on the table. It's the rats that go underground that you need to watch out for, that might smile to your face but try and undermine you otherwise. Those are the ones you need to identify and get them out the organization. But the ones who are openingly challenging and charismatic leaders, if you can switch them around to a new way and show how it's better for them and their organization that they lead, It works every time, yeah.
[00:22:20] Mark Rampolla: You alluded to this, you've been all over the world in your career. How has that sort of global perspective, or at least those global positions, shaped your perspective on leadership in business?
[00:22:31] Zico Coconut: I think the fascinating thing about that, Ray, is that you learn that there is no normal. because what's normal in one culture is not normal in another culture. So you learn to adapt. For instance, like I'm sitting here and I've got my elbows on the table. If we were dining in Holland, this would be totally acceptable. If we were dining in the UK, you do not have your elbows on the table. So that's totally unacceptable. But in Holland, you wouldn't have your hands underneath the table because that's disrespectful. So you just have to recognize that there is no norm. And so being culturally sensitive and aware is just a really important part of it. And then being superbly respectful of your hosts, because you're always a guest in these countries, especially if you have an international career, you're always moving on. they're left with what you left behind. So if you respect what they have done and achieved and you try and find those levers that you might be able to tweak to enhance the performance in the organization, that's the way you do it. You listen and you respect the people and things come right.
[00:23:43] Mark Rampolla: You're at Tetra Pak for 20 years. That's a long time to be with any company. you ultimately decided to leave and join the current company you're with, Goodbilly. What prompted that?
[00:23:56] Zico Coconut: It was the next step that Tetra Pak had in mind for me was moving to Switzerland, not a bad place, living in Lausanne and doing a global job. And then you literally are flying all over all the time. And when I put that to the family, they said... Your family? Yeah, my family. They said, nope, we're done. You head off to Switzerland on an international job you know, you're in Japan this week, you come home, you throw the dirty washing in the laundry on Friday, but you're in Brazil the next week. They said, we're staying here in the States, because the States, it's a seductively easy place to live. And so they say, you can go and do that. We're staying here. And I wasn't prepared to split up the family. And I wasn't prepared to commute across the Atlantic. So I decided that it was time for me to look for something different. And there were opportunities that came by that were that sort of billion dollar range to run those companies. But I thought Tetra Pak was a great company. And to go and run another big, great company didn't seem like that challenging or exciting to me. And so I had a close association with a lot of our customers, one of them being WhiteWave, Silk Soymilk WhiteWave. And once they'd sold Whitewave Foods Dean Foods, I knew that the founder of WhiteWave, Steve Demas, was looking to do his next thing. And he teamed up with another colleague of mine, Todd Beckman, who was at White Wave, previously worked with me before as well. And they ran a workshop on what's going to be the next big trend after that whole soy thing. And we decided it was digestive health. And so Todd went around the world scouting for latest developments in technology. And on my travels, I was still with Tetra Pak, I did the same thing. I traveled a lot with Tetra Pak and I was sitting in on the deck of a friend of mine in Sweden and he was talking about this amazing product they had called ProViva with the probiotic that we use today and he showed me these testimonials from consumers about how much to done for them And so I took the products from Sweden, literally, in my suitcase and flew to Colorado, gave them to Todd and Steve and I said, I think we found what you guys are looking for. And they then tried the product, noticed the feel, the effect, benefit that it had. And what was the product? It was the probiotic juice that we sell today. So we secured the license agreements with them. I helped with the naming the product. I was there when they did their first outside capital raise, but I wasn't working for them. I was, you know, helping them out while working at Tetra Pak. And then after a couple of years, they said, OK, come on, you come and run this thing for us. You know, it appealed to me. to run something that was like a couple of million, rather than a couple of billion, because the contrast would be big enough, and I would learn a whole lot of new stuff. And that's proven to be the case.
[00:27:12] Mark Rampolla: Yeah, I mean, that was in 2010. As a consumer at the time, I wasn't necessarily familiar with gut health as an important, I guess, part of my overall health, or probiotics, didn't even know what that word was.
[00:27:29] Zico Coconut: We got ahead of the curve there. But, you know, if you look at Steve Demus's earlier success with soy milk, with silk, He'll tell you that it was a 22 year overnight success because he pioneered that category for 20 years before it actually took off and it was eventually purchased. So, you know, as long as you're a first mover, it helps. You're pioneering the category, so you've got a lot of learning to do. But by the same token, you're making mistakes that others are still going to make. So you're always going to be ahead of a whole lot of people. I know what we do is really difficult, and I like that because it makes the barriers to entry that much more arduous.
[00:28:08] Mark Rampolla: It seems like it's been challenging to market probiotics or at least define what gut health and digestive health represents, what probiotics are and what they do for you. And there's been a few different iterations of how you've attempted to communicate that to consumers. What's been the best approach to date?
[00:28:32] Zico Coconut: Yeah, you're right. There have been a few iterations. I mean, early on, we targeted the product at boomers, because as you get older, your digestive flora deteriorates and, you know, that's where a probiotic should really help. That turned out not to really be the case. The average consumer of good belly products, a heavy use consumer, is not an older person. It's a person with issues. And so it was really a question of honing in on who is that core consumer, finding out what was their journey to discovering GoodBelly, and then trying to find out how you can intercept people like them who are on that journey so that they don't have to wait. three months, six months, three years, or 20 years to find something that can really help them and make them feel better. And so we've just completed some research on heavy users, and the targeting and the messaging is getting far more refined now that we have a sophisticated marketing team led by Megan Dish, also ex-White Wave, but a fantastic team who really know how to hone in on that consumer and talk to them as well.
[00:29:43] Mark Rampolla: So you're not trying to reach a broad set of consumers with good belly, is what I'm hearing?
[00:29:49] Zico Coconut: Well, you know, there are about 65 million people in the US who have digestive issues every year. So those people are receptive to an intervention of some sorts. Probiotics though do make people, this is what we hear from consumers, make them feel good. We hear, I've got more energy. We hear about all sorts of things that claim that we cure. We don't claim that we cure anything. But as you get to understand that interaction of the central nervous system with the microbiome, the bacteria in your body, you realize that the science will one day catch up to the anecdotes. because you can help a lot more people than just those with digestive health issues. And it'll get there as people realize that proactive health management is more important than reactive. So we'll get there, but let's look after the people who have issues first.
[00:30:44] Mark Rampolla: I read a study recently that said I think it was close to 80% or more of Americans are using and consuming food in lieu of traditional medicine. Do you see those people as a key part of your audience? I mean, are you looking at those kinds of people as, and those kinds of people meaning a majority of Americans, as the future of food in that the function is as important as the flavor?
[00:31:14] Zico Coconut: Ah, I love it. I love the way this is going by the way, right? The fact that people recognize that what you put into your face is gonna have an effect on how you feel. I mean, it's strange that hasn't dawned on us before, but it is so rewarding to see that people recognize that if I eat in a certain way, it's likely to have a certain outcome and a desirable outcome if I eat the right stuff. but if I eat crap, I'm also gonna feel crap. So it's the way it's gonna go, there's gonna be far more preventative healthcare through correct eating, rather than taking pills and paying for cures. So that is nothing but a good development, both for society and how people will feel, but also in terms of the affordability. We simply can't afford to go to the hospital, to go to a doctor to eat more pills every time there's an ailment. Let's prevent the ailments by looking at what's the right thing for us to eat and then we don't have to go down that vicious circle.
[00:32:17] Mark Rampolla: Yeah, I was just talking to Dr. Andrew Weil, who we recently featured on the podcast. And he was saying the exact same thing. His focus is integrative medicine, which combines both alternative medicine and traditional medicine as well. And one of the points that he brought up is that doctors don't talk enough about proper diet and healthy eating.
[00:32:39] Zico Coconut: Yeah, and I think he's absolutely right there, but I think it's incumbent upon us as consumers of the medical profession to every time you go to a doctor say, how should I try and cure this by eating differently? What should I be eating? I mean, I will never visit a doctor without asking those questions. So how should I modify my eating habits to address this issue? And then if enough people keep asking that, then they will either learn or those people will go and ask the same questions of somebody else. who does understand the requirements of nutrition for certain ailments or conditions.
[00:33:17] Mark Rampolla: That's an excellent point. One of the things that GoodBelly has done to expand its audience is partner with General Mills. General Mills invested, I believe it was $12 million in 2018. It was the 301 Inc. division, which is their venture capital arm. And since then, they've licensed the GoodBelly name to launch a couple new products. Can you tell us about why General Mills was the right partner and why those products are the right ones to expand GoodBelly's presence in stores?
[00:33:52] Zico Coconut: Yeah, we were looking at doing those things ourselves, going into, you know, yogurt or non-dairy yogurt or cereals and granolas. And when we realized the capital required to venture out of our core good belly shots, good belly quarts and a couple of grab and go products, we realized that we just didn't have the wherewithal to be able to throw the capital required to make a meaningful entrance into those categories. So that's why we sought out a partner who could be able to help us. And who better than General Mills when you're saying the logical places to go for digestive health would be yogurt, and then other breakfast occasions or products such as granolas or cereal. So they were the logical guys and we'd already established an early relationship through the Good Belly Bar. They're as serious about science as we are and they have enormous resources to be able to back up the launch of these different products into different categories. And The association and relationship that we have with 301 Inc, it's amazing the resources that they within 301 Inc have, not even talking about General Mills. So they'll have an expert on marketing, they'll have an expert on sales, they'll be able to help you with distribution and logistics. So John Hogan and his team are super supportive and we love working with them across multiple disciplines.
[00:35:26] Mark Rampolla: GoodBelly is probably the largest company in terms of sales and revenue within the 301 Inc portfolio. Is that correct?
[00:35:36] Zico Coconut: You know, I haven't really asked about the others. I just know that we are who we are and we get the attention that we look for and the help that we look for from them all the time. But I should imagine it's the same with all the other companies. Those guys are good at helping out, helping smaller companies grow.
[00:35:56] Mark Rampolla: When you're thinking about the long-term strategy of GoodBelly, does General Mills seem like the right fit for a potential acquisition?
[00:36:04] Zico Coconut: You know, there's certain logic behind that in that they will have had these licenses for a couple of years and they'd be able to see how that's been able to proliferate into different categories. You know, for us, the most important thing is how do we bring the digestive health benefits that GoodBelly can offer to as many people as possible? And so that'll be a big consideration when we start having those thoughts.
[00:36:28] Mark Rampolla: You talked a lot about science being important to your company and to General Mills. But is the average consumer going to pick up a box of cereal, and Good Belly's cereal resembles Cheerios, are they going to pick it up and read about the science, or are they going to pick it up and say, hey, I like the branding, I like the fact that it has some functional benefit, but are they really going to get deep into the science?
[00:36:51] Zico Coconut: They're not interested in the science. The consumer is going to say, Look at it from a perspective of what can this do for me? And less, how is it going to do that? If it comes from a credible source, and with the name Good Belly and the fact that we come from the natural foods industry, the authenticity is there and the believability is there. But we try to communicate in a friendly and quirky way. So the tone of voice of the brand is not at all that deep science tone, But if you wanted to dig deeper on the webpage, you'd find the studies, but the tone is much more, hey, we're your belly's best friend. We're there to help.
[00:37:30] Mark Rampolla: So we're here at Natural Products Expo East. We're exposed to a lot of new products, new brands, all trying to benefit consumers, all trying to promote the health benefits of their wares. What do you see as the most important trends? What do you see as the most important needs that our industry needs to address?
[00:37:52] Zico Coconut: From my perspective, it's like, let's not make too many irrational... and unbelievable promises. I like to think that, you know, we work off a feel the effect benefit, but not every product that you eat will be a feel the effect, but let's know that there's something authentic and real behind it and not just made up stories that are romanticized because I think people need to be better through having eaten better and make sure we're delivering the stuff that does that.
[00:38:26] Mark Rampolla: Fantastic. Alan, this time flies. I feel like we've been here for five minutes, but we've been here for about 45. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. I really, really appreciate it. I hope we can do this again at another time in the future.
[00:38:41] Zico Coconut: Ray, great being part of it. And thanks so much to BevNET for what you guys do for the industry. A pleasure working with you all the time.
[00:38:49] Mark Rampolla: Indeed it is. See you soon. Bye.
[00:38:52] SPEAKER_??: Bye.
[00:38:54] Mark Rampolla: That brings us to the end of episode 181. Thank you so much for listening, and thanks for our guest, Alan Murray. You can catch both Taste Radio and Taste Radio Insider on the Apple Podcasts app, Stitcher, Google Play, SoundCloud, and Spotify. As always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please send us an email to askattasteradio.com. On behalf of the entire Taste Radio team, thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.
