[00:00:10] Ray Latif: Hey folks, I'm Ray Latif and you're listening to the number one podcast for the food and beverage industry, Taste Radio. This episode features an interview with Tara Bosch, the founder of SmartSweets, a pioneering brand of better for you candy. Just a reminder to our listeners, if you like what you hear on Taste Radio, please share the podcast with friends and colleagues. And of course, we would love it if you could review us on the Apple Podcasts app or your listening platform of choice. As a child, Tara Bosch used to eat candy for breakfast. As an adult, the SmartSweets founder is eating her competitors for lunch. Launched in 2016, Tara created SmartSweets as an alternative to the vast majority of traditional candy brands, whose products are made with high amounts of sugar and often include artificial colors and flavors. The Canadian entrepreneur was ambitious from the start, envisioning SmartSweets as becoming a global player in the multi-billion dollar confectionery industry. Leading with a message of Kick Sugar, Keep Candy, the brand markets a range of low-sugar candy in familiar formats, including gummies, licorice, sour snacks, lollipops, and caramels. Primarily sweetened with allulose, which is described by the company as a non-artificial sweetener that is found in foods like raisins and figs, the products typically contain 1-3 grams of sugar per bag or serving size. Within four years of its debut, SmartSweets was carried by over 25,000 stores in North America, including Target, Kroger, Walmart and Whole Foods, and generating $100 million in annual sales. The remarkable growth drew the attention of private equity firm TPG Capital, which acquired a majority stake in the company for $360 million. In the following interview, I spoke with Tara about her emphasis on great taste as a way to distinguish smart sweets from both similarly positioned and legacy candy brands, the importance of quote, patient urgency in the company's growth strategy, prioritizing a lean business model, and the company's highly effective approach of leveraging social media as a way to drive consumers to the brand's retailers. Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now, I'm honored to be sitting down with the one and only Tara Bosch, the founder of SmartSweets. Tara, so great to see you.
[00:02:53] Tara Bosch: Thanks so much for having me. I'm honored to be with you.
[00:02:56] Ray Latif: Totally. I asked you where you're calling in from and you said the great city of Vancouver, a city that I have not traveled to yet. How long have you lived in the area?
[00:03:05] Tara Bosch: I have been in Vancouver my whole life, always based out of Vancouver.
[00:03:10] Ray Latif: Now, loyal listeners of the podcast know that I grew up eating Snickers. I love Snickers. I still, you know, Snickers are the best. It's one of the most satisfying candy bars you can buy, but I wish there were a better for you version. And I've talked about this a lot. And I'm wondering if Smart Sweets has a better for you Snickers bar in the works.
[00:03:31] Tara Bosch: Yeah, Snickers are, there's like the texture, the flavors, there's like something about how it all comes together. I can totally see why you are obsessed with it. We definitely have innovations that are like expanding beyond the category that we've been in, in non-chocolate. And some of that, that includes chocolate coming down the line, but Snickers bars specifically, I can't speak to, but I can tease that we definitely are expanding into that world.
[00:03:59] Ray Latif: Tara, you're the second entrepreneur that I've met that accepted a Teal Fellowship in lieu of a college degree. In hindsight, it was the right move, but how did you weigh that decision?
[00:04:12] Tara Bosch: Yeah, so when we were accepted into the Teal Fellowship program, I had already dropped out of college. It had been building smart suites. It was our second year with products on shelves. And so for me, the Teal Fellowship was really just kind of like a a cherry on top of the Sunday. It was just a win-win situation because I got accepted into a group where all of a sudden I had a fantastic network of just other people that were like-minded, working on bringing their passions to life in the world and creating impact. And then also I wasn't taking any salary from SmartSweets. And so with the Teal Fellowship, then I could like, at least it helped me to continue to like have my $2 muffin for lunch. So it helped me also to prolong the period of time that I personally took any salary from SmartSweets. So that was really helpful.
[00:05:13] Ray Latif: So you started SmartSweets in college?
[00:05:16] Tara Bosch: Yeah, I started SmartSweets. I was still in college. It was summer break.
[00:05:21] Ray Latif: Was it a passion project at the time or did you see it as being a serious business?
[00:05:25] Tara Bosch: Yeah, from day one when I had the idea in my head and it was really all ideation. I was just standing in the kitchen with my mold and my ingredients. And I had already decided that this is going to be something that exists in the world and that like 10 years from now, SmartSweets is going to be the global leader in reinventing candy and Kick Sugar and Keep Candy. So from day one, I went all in before anything had even materialized in the world. I just felt like a super strong sense of conviction towards it and that people needed access to candy that their body loved without sugar alcohols or anything added artificially. And that tasted amazing.
[00:06:12] Ray Latif: Now, growing up, I do recall that there were low sugar or all sugar candies that were out in the market. And I definitely recall how awful they tasted. How did you assess the issue of taste? What research went into ingredients and manufacturing?
[00:06:30] Tara Bosch: It was really interesting because when I was starting smart suites in adjacent categories in grocery, I had seen that this was being done. I was following stories like Halo Top really closely and Quest at the time was growing really quickly. And so I was seeing this be done in different categories and so followed quickly what ingredients were they using, what ingredients tasted amazing and replaced the bulk of sugar, but kept the mouthfeel and the texture and all those things. So that was part of it. And then the other part of it was just getting nerdy on food science journals on Google and just just educating myself because candy is really interesting. There's a lot of science that goes into having to have the exact right temperatures for the melting point and sugar is such an enormous part of the traditional candies recipe and sugar is a very interesting ingredient that has a lot of beneficial properties that are very hard to replicate and then keep the taste. So yeah, it was just really taking those two things and then just trial and error at the end of the day.
[00:07:42] Ray Latif: Did you have to become an expert on the business? Do you have to become an expert on candy to feel like you could deliver on what you're promising for SmartSweets?
[00:07:51] Tara Bosch: Yeah, I feel like it kind of just happens naturally. Like, I didn't, I guess, consciously be like, I need to be an expert. But when I was dedicating, like, truly my entire life, every hour of every day, and just pouring everything I had into bringing this idea to life. And so I feel like I just kind of as a byproduct became pretty well educated.
[00:08:15] Ray Latif: A term you've used to describe the development of smart suites is patient urgency, which on the surface sounds like an oxymoron, but it was so critical, that term, to how you built the business. Can you explain what you mean by patient urgency?
[00:08:34] Tara Bosch: What it means to me is running like hell every single day and in sense of having an urgency that you're just doing everything you possibly can in every given day so when you're going to bed at night and staring at the roof. You're like you know what I did everything in my being today to move this forward. And then at the same time, having the patience to keep the context that you're working towards something that's not going to come to fruition overnight that's going to take. 50 days, 100 days, a year, two years of patient urgency to really bear the fruits of what you're working so hard on in the day to day. But that was something that really helped the squad and I keep the context that And the times when it would get really hard and that sort of thing, that if we just kept remaining steadfast and had the patience, that the dedication and discipline and the day-to-day, we would begin to bear the fruits of and really celebrating the wins and all the small moments was a huge part of that as well.
[00:09:46] Ray Latif: And, you know, being sort of ahead of the game in terms of non-sugar or low-sugar candy. I mentioned that I grew up, you know, and tasted some of those types of products and they weren't very good. Now you can go into a grocery store and find a lot of different products and there's even more coming to market. Was first mover advantage with a great tasting product, you know, a key pillar of the eventual success of SmartSweets?
[00:10:14] Tara Bosch: Absolutely. I think being a first mover is certainly helpful. I think you have the gift of time in the sense of you have whatever extra chunk of time that is to really hit the ground and to make progress, build your distribution and brand awareness, all of the things. So that definitely was helpful. I think though, in combination, just really being obsessed with having a value proposition that can't be out exceeded, that I think was just as important because even early on in SmartSuite's journey, there were products that launched into market that's intent was the same as smart suites. But when we just stayed true to our value proposition and what we really felt was creating the most radical value for the consumer, at the end of the day, I think that's really what carried us through a lot in our growth. But being first was certainly helpful.
[00:11:18] Ray Latif: Now, a phrase that I often hear from founders, but I think is somewhat misunderstood, is building the plane while you're flying it. Taken literally, it's impossible. Taken with a grain of salt doesn't sound like the best idea, but it is an apt term to describe the development of smart suites. How do you fly with an incomplete jet?
[00:11:41] Tara Bosch: It was a super delicate balance with looking around the bend. And this is kind of, I guess, what I mean by building the plane as we are flying it for us, because we would look around the bend and be like, OK, what what is working right now that is going to not work any longer in three months or six months, whether that was a system or that we needed a new team member, whatever the case was, always asking ourselves that question and looking around the bend was so beneficial and served us so immensely well. So that as we rounded the corner on those things, we had invested in different things just enough so that the systems and all of the things, the plane didn't break. We were able to continue flying and then continue looking around the bend and making our bets and our hypothesis on what we need to build around the bend so that we're set up to continue flying.
[00:12:40] Ray Latif: What's an example of something where you invested just for three to six months and realized that, you know, you would need to take a different tack to solve the next issue, to solve the next scaling issue?
[00:12:52] Tara Bosch: Yeah, totally. It was in our, the end of our very first year in business. One of my, she was an advisor and a mentor, then became one of our board members, Judy Brooks. She had come to me and said, I think we should bring on a COO as well as someone that leads our finance. And to me at the time, I was like, we are finished year one in business. We do not need these C-suite titles. We just like, this is, this is crazy. But in sitting on it, I came to see that she was looking around the bend and seeing what I wasn't, which was that we were scaling extremely fast operationally. And one of my weaknesses was finance and numbers. And I was still the person primarily running that with a contractor that was helping with our books. So that was a huge, huge blessing having them both come on because it helped us to build the foundation in those areas before those areas broke, which they would have if I had waited even six months longer, just at the pace at which we were scaling. And it allowed us to be able to execute on certain opportunities, like when Whole Foods had offered to launch us nationally with speed that we wouldn't have been ready to at its core with our operations and all the things, had we not looked around the bend.
[00:14:24] Ray Latif: You know, operations, I hear that more and more from entrepreneurs, that they're looking for someone who is skilled in food or beverage operations, who has been doing it for a long time, because that kind of planning especially nowadays with supply chain issues and the cost of ingredients is so important. And for smart suites, given that you were growing so quickly, I got to think that your operations chief really helped you understand, you know, what you needed for a year down the line, two, three, four years down the line. But. you had to have a sense of where you wanted to be at that place, where you wanted to be in that timeline. How did you go about planning for growth and planning for the future?
[00:15:11] Tara Bosch: Yeah, the concept that we used in our Candyland brand language was reverse executing. And it was kind of just peeling back the grand vision, which is to be the global leader in revolutionizing candy. And then it would be all of us sitting together as a team and peeling that back and being like, okay, what does that mean 10 years from now? What does that mean five years from now? Okay, so that means we need to be the leader in North America and US and Canada first. Okay, so that means that we need to be in XYZ and have this XYZ brand awareness. So really peeling back those layers was extremely helpful to become very, very specific and to be able to make one page plans that had really clear, concrete things that we were working towards. That was kind of how we peeled back the layers. And then I guess just funneling into that was all of the executional stuff, like having commands that we could scale with and things like that.
[00:16:12] Ray Latif: Being really clear about what you wanted to do, being really clear about your objectives. Can you talk a bit more about that? Because I think that's such an important point is not just knowing what you want to do, but being super specific about it.
[00:16:30] Tara Bosch: So we would annually make these one page plans and on them, they were just super, super simple, but they were very specific about each department and then overall as a company, what it was that we were going to achieve. And it would get down to be like, as specific as noting like the average velocity in every retailer across the board that we are going to achieve or what new partner was going to come on board and how we were going to execute that partnership and what success would look like to us with that partnership. And so having very few, I'd say it was always like three to four Max but specific items, it allowed us to all kind of rally together to know in the day to day what we were charging towards and to bring that to fruition.
[00:17:25] Ray Latif: I also want to go back to the point of running lean and staying lean and being focused on costs and expenses. Now, you had mentioned that you brought on, essentially within the first year and a half, a COO and a CFO. These roles are not cheap. I think anyone listening would know that. So when you talk about running lean, what do you mean, what were some of the things that you could pull back on that you could reduce in terms of expenses to achieve the kind of margins and profitability that you're chasing?
[00:18:02] Tara Bosch: Yeah, it was definitely a balance. Even like the head of finance and CEO that came on board, they came on board at probably like half of what the market rate would have been. And we compensated for that in equity. So all the team members that we brought on board had Equity, which to me was incredibly important that everybody knew that they were owners in the company and that they really felt that sense of ownership. And from that stemmed dedication, then loyalty to the mission and all of the things. But that was really helpful also from a team perspective in terms of running lean, because equity did make up for what a lot of standard salary would in those early days, as well as we had an amazing bonus program. So if we were executing and hitting and achieving our goals, then that would also compensate for the lower base salary people we would have. So we'd find creative ways like that to stay lean on the people front. And then on other fronts, I mean, it was really just of the mindset. We would often say like, okay, how can we hack this or look at things from a perspective that a lot of tech startups kind of would and kind of how they ideate. And then the other part of it was just having the conversations with people, with our retailers. We would get creative and we'd be like, Hey, we literally cannot pay for a free fill right now. However, what if we do a giveaway on social and we push our partnership through our e-news? And so that was a big part of it as well. And just building great relationships.
[00:19:43] Ray Latif: And your retail buyers were okay with that, you know, not giving, not giving. Okay. Interesting.
[00:19:48] Tara Bosch: It was actually quite surprising to me. I think how at the time that smart suites was scaling underutilized social media wise, we had a following at that time of it was around like 400,000 was our, our Kick Sugar community on social and collectively across all our platforms. It was like 800,000 or something. And just the value that our retail partners saw in that. for us to really leverage our consumer and to get them going into their doors. That went a really long way with us, not just with small partners, but with larger partners that came on board as well.
[00:20:25] Ray Latif: At what stage of development are we talking about here? Was it a couple of years in? Was it three years in that you were able to make these deals and that you had that kind of social following?
[00:20:34] Tara Bosch: Yeah, it was really from day one that we were making it was just on a much smaller scale with more local retailers and our first national partners to like Bed Bath & Beyond. Even back then, I think we only had like 10,000 in our Instagram community, but they still saw the value in that and got the direction that we were going and didn't have brands that were in the food space, really focused on building a community at that time. but it really served us more powerfully, I would say, in terms of running lean with our larger partners. And that would probably have been year two and year three.
[00:21:10] Ray Latif: You mentioned Bed, Bath & Beyond, which I used to shop at more often than I do nowadays. And I think it's probably true for a lot of people. No offense to Bed, Bath & Beyond, but it's, you know, state of the world, or at least the state of retail. It's interesting that you, they were a key retail partner for SmartSuites early on. Why did you look at them as an opportunity? I mean, did they reach out to you or was that somewhere that you wanted the brand to be?
[00:21:36] Tara Bosch: Yeah, so my hypothesis was because of the power of social media that it would actually be more frustrating to our community if we weren't available national from very early on. And so I was really focused on finding a partner or ended up being two partners that were national. So they helped to create that accessibility and they were willing to really go all in with us. They got the vision and they were going to support us in ways far beyond just putting our product on shelf. And so Bed Bath & Beyond was one of those partners. And that was really the two reasons why I partnered with them. At every single cash register they were doing these massive posts with smart tweets wrapped all around them. And this was just from the enthusiasm they had about our mission and our partnership and what we could create together so. They were a partner that just happened to be able to create the accessibility for us, as well as that was really willing to go deep with us. And that's why I partnered with them. But yeah, it definitely sounds like a very random partner at Surface.
[00:22:51] Ray Latif: Was it a cold call to them or was it something where they saw SmartSuites at some other retailer and they were like, Hey, we have to have this in our stores.
[00:22:58] Tara Bosch: Yeah, it was a cold call. It was one of the doors that I was banging on.
[00:23:02] Ray Latif: It seems like it worked. And what was the other big retailer? Was it Whole Foods that you're talking about?
[00:23:07] Tara Bosch: It was, I'm not sure if you've heard of this one. It was called Popeye supplements, not to be confused with the chicken brand. They're basically very similar to like a vitamin shop or GNC, but they're nationwide in Canada. And so again, they had the accessibility and then they were really willing to go deep with us. So ended up being a great partner.
[00:23:31] Ray Latif: Having a national retail partner is a huge win for brands. Fulfillment and being able to meet those orders, you know, that can be the challenging part. But I think nowadays people would look at that strategy and say, well, why didn't you just go direct to consumer? You know, you have all these fans that you're trying to reach and they all want your products. Why don't you just ship it to them directly?
[00:23:56] Tara Bosch: Yeah, totally. For us, it was always a mix. With candy, it's such an impulse purchase. It's something like, you have the sweet tooth, you want a bag of candy now, you don't necessarily want to go in line and order and wait. I think that hypothesis served us well, but you're totally right. So we did also lean into e-comm from day one, and we really focused on creating a really fun consumer experience through our e-comm platform with kind of bringing like the joy and the personalization and all the things that you just can't really do in retail. So I'd say Ecom was around 30% of our business. It was kind of a 70-30 split all the way through scaling.
[00:24:41] Ray Latif: Finding the right influencer for your brand is something that a lot of founders struggle with. What was your approach to aligning with influencers and people that you thought could amplify the brand and amplify your vision and the benefits of the product most accurately to, you know, the way you saw it.
[00:24:59] Tara Bosch: I mean, I really viewed it as like, at the end of the day, I wanted to find people that smart suites was truly creating such immense value in their lives that they naturally wanted to share it with others, whether or not we are working with them. I had hypothesized and we came up with the idea and it was inspired actually by Tim Ferriss book, the four hour work week when he was talking about. his marketing strategy for the book and how he honed in on that. We began choosing niches. We started with just one niche where we were a very small company, but it was a niche that we felt like we were creating immense value for and also the ripple effects of focusing on the niche was that to that niche almost overnight smart suites was everywhere. And then we would grow beyond that to the next niche, where again we are still very small company but it would create the illusion that smart suites is everywhere and kind of create the group passion within that niche for smart suites. So that was how we started. And the first niche we chose was the Weight Watchers community. And then we grew to like the fitness influencer community where both those communities, something they had in common was they weren't eating candy at all. So we were actually reintroducing something that brought so much joy to them back into their lives. And so then we just kind of grew the niches step-by-step, and that proved to be a really powerful strategy for us.
[00:26:33] Ray Latif: You would have to have a really sophisticated way, I would assume, to understand how to reach these folks, because I couldn't just go online and say, hey, I'm going to try to reach the Weight Watchers community and talk about my product and my brand, and all of a sudden I'm going to have 10,000 people interested in my brand. How did you, I guess, get sophisticated? How did you get savvy about reaching these folks? What was your background in terms of social or was it something that you outsourced?
[00:27:09] Tara Bosch: I think that was kind of one of the things that benefited us was like, it actually wasn't anything sophisticated. It was super simple. It just took a whole lot of time and energy. So when we were first starting with the Weight Watchers niche, for example, I would probably be on Instagram, like, I don't know, at least seven hours a day just looking up the hashtag Weight Watchers, Weight Watchers community, then it pulls up related hashtags and then you go on these hashtags and you very quickly see kind of who's part of this community and then just DMing them but from an authentic place and not just a copy and pasted message. that is feels imperceptible and just isn't authentic to that person so it really wasn't anything sophisticated so much as it was just kind of the time and energy of pouring into doing that. We always kept it in-house. It was myself and my very first team member for a very long time. And then in our second year, at the end of that year, we hired an influencer coordinator and that was it all the way through to our scaling. And so we kept things super lean. And then as we scaled down the road, we introduced like an influencer management platform and did become more sophisticated. but in the beginning and as we were kind of growing that, it really just was the time and energy of going on there, understanding who's in the community and really taking the time to authentically connect.
[00:28:44] Ray Latif: And when you did DM these influencers, was it easier to connect given that you were coming from an authentic place or was it still, hey, no matter who you are, we get paid this much or we get this much product to do anything for you?
[00:28:58] Tara Bosch: Yeah, I'd say probably like 90% of the people were really receptive. There was of course that like 10% that was just like, here are my prices and that sort of thing. But I'd say like 90% of people were really receptive and we were really focused on building a Kick Sugar community, not just selling a product, but they were also equally passionate about the mission. And so the reason for being. that ignited their excitement was far beyond just a product. It was about joining this mission that we're on together.
[00:29:33] Ray Latif: Going back to building out your team, you know, at the outset, it was just you and one other person, then you hired an influencer coordinator. As you were building out your team, who are you looking for to be on this team? Again, because from the outset, you had this grand vision, and then once the grand vision was on its way, or once you started executing upon it, Smartspace was growing really, really quickly. So you have to hire quickly, and that's not always easy when you're trying to get a sense of who the right fit is for the company. So talk about your hiring strategy.
[00:30:09] Tara Bosch: Yeah, as we were growing, Yeah, we very quickly or it's kind of the part of looking around the band I think that served as well to be like, what do we think we'll need in three months, six months, a year from now, so it minimized as feeling rushed about having to bring someone on board and not not having someone so even if we knew a role was a year away. we would begin fostering those relationships. And so by the time it came there, we in our mind already knew who would be a good fit for us that served us really well. But yeah, I'd say all the way up to probably our third year, everyone that we hired, though they were really well equipped to execute on their specific function. Everyone had a, I can wear all the hats mentality. And that was extremely important for all the firefighting and all the things of startup life.
[00:31:08] Ray Latif: So generalists versus people who are specific to a certain role.
[00:31:13] Tara Bosch: Yeah, and I'd say to an extent there were some roles, for example, like an AR coordinator that was like pretty specific to do AR stuff. However, everyone had that mentality about being able to learn something new if they need to, and just jump in and help all together collectively to move things forward, even if that meant stepping outside of their role.
[00:31:40] Ray Latif: Do you feel like you were better served and the company was better served by hiring people who were experienced versus those who were really enthusiastic about the vision?
[00:31:52] Tara Bosch: It's such a good tricky question. I feel like for us, it honestly felt like it had to be the blend of both. Having that enthusiasm, just the enthusiasm, I don't think would have worked. And then having just the skillset, definitely did not work. So I think having that blend where they're equally passionate as they are skilled was what worked for us. And it was a tricky blend to find and it didn't always work.
[00:32:22] Ray Latif: I would assume that you were hiring people who were a lot older than you at the time. When you launched SmartSuites, you were, again, still in college. And as you built the company, you were still relatively young. Did you ever encounter any kind of perception issues for being a young CEO? And if so, how did you address those issues?
[00:32:41] Tara Bosch: I would say I don't think I experienced anything from an age perspective I think what did play an interesting role was the age in combination with being a woman, where I would be in different situations. where, for example, my male counterparts, they were raising money, pitching to an investor, they were pre-revenue, but were asking for a certain valuation, and that valuation wasn't questioned. But then when I go and speak, we have revenue, and ask for a certain valuation. There's all these details and background facts and stuff that's being asked of me, but not my male counterparts. So little, I think, nuances like that, where it wasn't an age thing, but definitely from a gender perspective, I felt. On the manufacturing front as well, you're walking into a plant and it's all older men that probably haven't interacted with a younger woman CEO in the candy world before. But that said, it was just kind of things that I was like, oh, that's interesting. And notice it didn't necessarily have an impact. And at the end of the day, I think numbers don't lie. Numbers don't tell the proof is in the pudding. And so I think when people see the numbers and the growth trajectory, you can't argue that
[00:34:04] Ray Latif: Are you working with early stage brands? Are you helping to fund any new ideas out there, particularly in food and beverage?
[00:34:11] Tara Bosch: For me, what I've kind of really been focused on, I think, is supporting and elevating other women entrepreneurs. So I started a charity with our COO and one of our board members called Sweet Futures to really with our mission is that. And then absolutely, I think just kind of the classic paying it forward now and supporting any other entrepreneur in general, but also specifically female entrepreneurs that are on their journeys is something I'm super passionate about. But I haven't dove headfirst into anything just yet, but supporting where I can, absolutely.
[00:34:53] Ray Latif: So DM Tara on LinkedIn is what I'm hearing.
[00:35:00] Tara Bosch: Honestly, like in the beginning of Smartsweets journey, I was so honored by just how people were willing to take five to 10 minutes to talk to me and just how impactful that was for my journey. And so if I can do that for other entrepreneurs, if I can be of any service at all, I'm more than happy and honored to.
[00:35:22] Ray Latif: Thank you so much for saying that, Tara, and thank you so much for sharing more than five to 10 minutes with me. I sincerely appreciate it, and I feel like our audience is gonna get quite a bit out of this. We covered a lot, and I know there's more story to tell. I hope that we can meet up again in the near future, perhaps in person in Vancouver if I ever get out there. I would love to come and visit.
[00:35:43] Tara Bosch: I would love that, absolutely. I can show you all the good spots.
[00:35:46] Ray Latif: Thank you very much. And we'll make sure maybe, perhaps, that there is a prototype Snickers bar that I can taste as well.
[00:35:55] Tara Bosch: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. If there is, you will be the first one to taste it.
[00:35:59] Ray Latif: You hear that folks? The honor is just, I can't even take it right now. I'm smiling from ear to ear for folks who aren't watching the video. Tara, thank you so much again for taking the time. It's been fantastic.
[00:36:11] Tara Bosch: Thank you so much, Ray.
[00:36:15] Ray Latif: That brings us to the end of this episode of Taste Radio. Thank you so much for listening, and thanks to our guest, Tara Bosch. Our audio engineer for Taste Radio is Joseph Krachie. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt, and our video editor is Ryan Galang. As always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please send us an email to ask at Taste Radio. On behalf of the entire Taste Radio team, thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.
