[00:00:10] Mike Schneider: Hello, and thanks for tuning into Taste Radio, the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food and beverage. I'm Mike Schneider, aka BevNetMike, and I'm with my co-hosts for this episode, John Craven and Jacqui Brugliera. Yeah, Ray bailed on this week's episode, but he left like half a script and a bottle of stale Gatorade for us for hydration. Well, he said it's stale. I don't know can do beverages go stale.
[00:00:32] John Craven: That's not we call it Probably not he probably spit in it and left it and now it's fermenting He's off in Spain probably drowning in some I don't know red wine and having the meat sweats Speaking of travel John Craven loves a Guinness as long as it's poured in Ireland.
[00:00:53] Mike Schneider: Otherwise, he thinks it's straight shite True or false
[00:00:57] Jacqui Brugliera: God, that's like, I can't answer this question or I'm not going to offend someone, right? What? Guinness is good. Come on.
[00:01:03] John Craven: Even people from Ireland admit that the Guinness is just better in Ireland.
[00:01:08] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah. Yeah. But I don't think it was like the liquid was better. It's just better to be in Ireland drinking a Guinness.
[00:01:14] John Craven: Yeah, it's just the experience.
[00:01:16] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah. But yeah, I had a few.
[00:01:18] John Craven: And you went to the Guinness factory, right?
[00:01:20] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, it was that was a little a little overwhelming or maybe underwhelming underwhelming It's just kind of like a museum. I mean, I don't know, you know, it's a Diageo product You go on a tour right and then they give you then they we didn't do it. We didn't do the tour We just ate there and like walked around had some beers. My daughter went there. She had like half of the tiny Give you she's like, oh at least I tried Guinness. I Didn't get a little tiny taster. I don't know. We did it wrong. We did it wrong.
[00:01:47] John Craven: I did all
[00:01:49] Jacqui Brugliera: I had my two kids with me and my wife, obviously. But we have to learn how to do it the right way. Do what?
[00:01:57] John Craven: Yeah, go to the Guinness factory. I mean, you miss the tasting experience, which for you as a beverage tasting pro probably isn't that cool, but they give you these little tiny Guinnesses and they walk you through the aromas and all the different components of the beer.
[00:02:12] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, no, that's kind of what I was getting at though. My kids in particular, who have grown up going to way too many breweries and other CPG related things, we're just not having it.
[00:02:27] John Craven: They're like, not again.
[00:02:28] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, basically they're like, what is this?
[00:02:30] Mike Schneider: We also had an upcoming CPG related things feast in the upcoming Summer Fancy Food Show, which we just got back from yesterday. John and I did a One-Day Sprint of the Summer Fancy Food Show, which was great. John, let's talk a little bit about the Fancy Food Show.
[00:02:45] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, always, I don't know, one of my favorite shows, sort of the last one before summer kind of really starts. And yeah, pretty good energy there. We were there Monday and, you know, I feel like there were more people into it just with the lack of Expo East this year, which, you know, side note, kind of wish this one would maybe move into like September and take the place of that. But, you know, we need a solid East Coast show. New York's certainly the place to be for that, but yeah, lots of great brands there. I mean, walking around with Mike, I think we tried basically every hot sauce known to man. It was pretty funny. The, uh, gosh, which one was that?
[00:03:29] Summer Fancy: Was that the Empress? Yeah.
[00:03:30] Jacqui Brugliera: See, they're like describing one of them as, as actually spicy and, you know, they're from, Taiwan, I'm kind of like thinking their level of what spicy is not gonna be compatible with me So I tapped out on the mild after that and Mike Went for the spicy did not have a lot and he was he was dying. So they had five
[00:03:51] Mike Schneider: hot sauces and they had them in progression. Jack, you would have loved this.
[00:03:54] John Craven: Yeah. Oh, my goodness. I'm so jealous.
[00:03:56] Mike Schneider: It was a flight of hot sauce. They gave it to you on a cracker, started with their pineapple miso, which is incredible. Then there was a smoked variety. And then you moved into this. There was a mango skew that just it was so unique. It was like nothing I'd tasted before. And I think That was probably my favorite. It didn't have as much heat, but I just want to taste that all the time. It was really good. And then, you know, it progressed from there and then get to ghost pepper. And I was looking at the heat ratings and the heat rating was four. Okay. So I'm like, yeah, I can handle this. And as John said, I was straight nuked, standing there trying to have a conversation, turning red and just like, ah, ah, ah. And it was one of those, Jackie, where the flavor's amazing and the volume just keeps turning up.
[00:04:46] John Craven: Building and building.
[00:04:47] Mike Schneider: As you're standing there and building and building. And they ended up getting me eight more crackers.
[00:04:53] John Craven: Oh my goodness.
[00:04:54] Mike Schneider: And I ate them all.
[00:04:54] John Craven: It's probably entertaining for them to like watch people go through the experience, you know?
[00:04:59] Jacqui Brugliera: I think they were slightly amused. So they were psyched that we liked their product. Yeah, Jane was definitely amused.
[00:05:05] Mike Schneider: Yeah, that mango one was superb. I think she was also a bit horrified. I was telling John also that four is in Chinese, the word is su, which also means death. So I think that's why they rated it four.
[00:05:17] Jacqui Brugliera: Just death sauce.
[00:05:19] Mike Schneider: Death for Mike, at least. It's a really good flavor.
[00:05:23] Food Show: The heat was just, there's a lot. Vibrant Ingredients is the natural ingredient partner powering food and beverage innovation, delivering flavor, function, and protection through a science-backed portfolio. Vibrant delivers purpose-driven solutions that help brands create extraordinary experiences. Discover what's possible with Vibrant today. Visit VibrantIngredients.com
[00:05:54] Mike Schneider: One of the things that was interesting about the show was that South Asian brands were there in force and organized. They had a party and I felt like there was just a lot of energy from those founders at the show, getting a lot of attention. They all brought really great products. Uh, John's eating one right now. What am I eating? Or you just ate it actually just finished it. Uh, Aji's Lanza. Oh yeah. This, this little tub of delicious stuff. We saw Rajasthan Purva and I got a hug from Aji herself. That was awesome. It's great to be able to hang out with the founders and then just hear how they describe their brands to people and to look at and to watch their reactions. Everybody seems to really be enjoying the Aji's experience. Definitely. We caught up with Eliza from Peepal People as well. I also got nuked by their ghost peppers. So amazing.
[00:06:45] John Craven: Yeah, I saw their new packaging and it looks really, really nice. Very clean.
[00:06:51] Mike Schneider: Yeah, I know there's a parrot on the front now. They've changed the name so that you can tell exactly what you're getting from the product. There's still a good cultural nod in there as well too. So we were talking about this in the beginning, as you recall, Jackie, we talked about, oh, you know, how do you. make this more accessible for people and, and without, you know, selling out to be frank. And I think they did a good job of that too. The design is based on the trucks in Pakistan, which I don't know if you two know, I didn't know that much about this, but they paint them. And so when you're in traffic, there's this beautiful artwork that's like distracting you. That's cool. We of course caught up with Karthik from Doosra and Sahithya from Chutni Punch, Monica from the Chai Box. I mean, again, there was just a really cool critical mass of South Asian founders there. And we also caught up with Sajani from Kola Goodies, which we have in front of us here. Kola Goodies, a brand of Sri Lankan milk teas. So we have the traditional Sri Lankan milk tea latte here, and also the masala chai lattes, which is what you have in your cup there, John. These come in a box and you open the box and there's this pack inside which has a powder in it that you steep and then you strain and you can drink. Cheers. I thought this was just an old latte. Nope. It's masala chai.
[00:08:20] John Craven: So does it already have like powdered milk or something in there?
[00:08:24] Mike Schneider: Yeah, this has the milk in it already, so you don't have to steam milk or figure any of that part out. It's, you know, it's the perfect balance on the side. This is Kola Goodies, no baddies, just freshly aff whole ingredients.
[00:08:36] John Craven: I love that. Goodies, no baddies.
[00:08:38] Mike Schneider: Super cute and tasty. What do you think?
[00:08:41] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, pretty solid. I'm not a huge chai drinker, but this stuff is definitely tasty. Definitely tasty.
[00:08:48] John Craven: And you're opening up some snoods?
[00:08:49] Jacqui Brugliera: I'm just having a little snack over here. Just trying to discreetly open a bag of snoods. These things are really delicious. I mean, basically a chip that's pasta, right?
[00:09:03] John Craven: Yeah.
[00:09:04] Jacqui Brugliera: This one's a rigatoni, basil, pomodoro. What was the, like, ramen-like flavor that they had? It was like a miso?
[00:09:11] Mike Schneider: Oh, miso ramen, yeah.
[00:09:12] Jacqui Brugliera: Oh, it was actually called miso ramen, right? Yeah, that was really, uh, really tasty, very spicy.
[00:09:17] Mike Schneider: We caught up with the founder, Lauren Bodden, at the show yesterday, and she was just telling us a little bit about the experience of Snoods and saying, you know, her idea was to bring less popular shapes of pasta into snack form. So there's still a bunch of education there. But one of the things that surprised her is that the older generation really likes her product as much as the younger generation.
[00:09:40] John Craven: I feel like all generations love pasta.
[00:09:42] Mike Schneider: But they also love the ramen, the miso.
[00:09:45] John Craven: Yeah.
[00:09:46] Jacqui Brugliera: This is definitely the right starting point. Rigatoni. Yeah. Who hasn't had rigatoni, right? And it's basically just tomato sauce.
[00:09:54] John Craven: And I remember the first time we tried it, I think it was at Expo West and we went through the flavors and we started with the rigatoni, which is more approachable. And then I John Craven's eyes were like the star emojis, you know?
[00:10:06] Mike Schneider: Maybe perhaps less approachable was a beverage from Mona tea called Fuqua Fuqua is a beverage for quote sexual enhancement. Oh that makes sense oh Yeah, but it's spelled F-U-Q-B-O-I. I was like, this is fuckboy. I could see this on Snack Shot. It was like, who's had fuckboy? Oh, goodness. But I didn't try it.
[00:10:40] Jacqui Brugliera: John, you tried it. Thanks for outing me. Yeah, I was, I guess, forced to try a little taste of it. I don't, you know, I think gingery or something. I don't even remember what the active ingredient was, but Yeah, I would strongly advise against that branding. And to be honest, probably that function too. That's sort of a limited reach product.
[00:11:01] Mike Schneider: Especially if you like rooibos tea, because Monatis has a good line of sweetened and unsweetened rooibos teas that are flavored that I thought were, you know, those were, those are really tasty.
[00:11:13] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, I mean, if you like rooibos tea, then for sure. I mean, I think that's also another one of those products that I think is tried time and time again, and I think is a lot of times, well, always struggled to get beyond being kind of a niche offering of the tea set just due to the education hurdle. You know, it's interesting walking around somewhere like the fancy Food Show and you know, some stuff that is trending now. What are the things that, you know, I don't know, five or maybe even in some cases, 10 years ago, we're like the man, there's a massive educational hurdle here. And, you know, now that hurdles been cleared or is close to being cleared. You know, I think of that with a lot of the. South Asian flavors that we're seeing. And, you know, at the same time, there's kind of like a new class of those every single year, right? Where like the educational hurdle is, you know, it's like long tail innovation stuff that, you know, some of it will probably succeed, some maybe not. But, you know, and I guess getting that back to the rooibos, like some things just seem like they're still waiting for their moment, you know, not the rooibos isn't like a known thing, but it's not. Right. You know, it's not like a volume producer in the tea set, right?
[00:12:32] Mike Schneider: It's not black tea. It's not green tea.
[00:12:33] Jacqui Brugliera: Right, right. Yeah. So or matcha for that matter. Right. But always, always fun to check this stuff out.
[00:12:39] John Craven: Yeah. I think there's still like education around tea in general and like functionality in tea and herbal tea. And I feel like that is growing, though. I feel like in the last couple of years, we've seen more and more herbal teas and herbal tea beverages come out.
[00:12:55] Jacqui Brugliera: I mean, it's one of the most confusing sort of things in the sense that there's tea and then everything else that's not actually from a tea plant, right? Rooibos, you know, mate, guayusa, like whatever it is. And I think there's always been just like a marketing and messaging challenge that any brand that goes into those categories faces. So yeah, I mean, it's, it's very interesting and obviously tea is like, I don't know what, like the most popular beverage on earth or something? It is, yeah.
[00:13:26] Mike Schneider: But what if, hear me out here for a second, what if rooibos tea had a non-niche functionality like immunity?
[00:13:36] John Craven: Oh, oh wow.
[00:13:38] Mike Schneider: Immuse. I'm like, where's this guy going? Incorporate Amuse into your innovation strategy and help your consumers optimize their health throughout the year. Learn more at amusehealth.com. That's I-M-M-U-S-E, health.com. Thanks for sponsoring Amuse.
[00:14:09] Jacqui Brugliera: You know, I'm pretty sure this Aji's Lanza has immunity benefits.
[00:14:13] John Craven: I'm sure that's what I'm telling myself as I eat a whole tub of it anything with nutritional benefit has immunity benefits, right?
[00:14:21] Jacqui Brugliera: I mean, that's what I'm saying. I mean, that's just 20 calories of awesome right there. I mean probably this little bottle of Straightaway, no Chino Manhattan has some benefits, right? so obviously not not gonna sample this right now since it's still a Morning here, but I sampled it the other day. This is from straightaways, what do they call it? Sipper Club, I think. So they've got a Nocino, which Nocino is like a walnut liqueur, Manhattan, super tasty if you're in the Manhattan's and then a Breakfast Martinis, which I don't know about. I don't know about the suggestion of martinis for breakfast but... Curious what's in it. Yeah so why they called it a Breakfast Martinis is it has orange marmalade in it which like you totally wouldn't pick up on but it's basically like it's got orange liqueur, dried vermouth, lemon juice, gin of course, but it's kind of like a citrusy martini with this nice little kind of extra orange note at the end.
[00:15:23] Mike Schneider: Well, if you drink that at breakfast and you have enough of it, it's a different kind of immunity that you feel like you have. Invincibility. I'm going to stick with my Kola Goodies, masala chai latte.
[00:15:33] Jacqui Brugliera: Either way, last thing I'll say about StraightAway. My favorite email to get is when Cy Cain, who's the founder, CEO of StraightAway, sends an email with, hey, I've got some new stuff. Oh, yeah.
[00:15:45] John Craven: I feel like that's been a lot more regularly lately. Straightaway Cocktails been coming out with nonstop new innovative.
[00:15:52] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, they're following a model that we're seeing a growing number of companies try, which is sort of having this like subscription club for like the most engaged, like hardcore consumers where they're able to try out new ideas, both, you know, just to put stuff out with an audience that's going to buy it, but also, you know, to get some feedback on things that maybe would turn into more mass-produced products later.
[00:16:17] John Craven: Yeah, I believe we saw that with like Hoplark too, right?
[00:16:21] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, Hoplark's doing it and there's a couple of other ones.
[00:16:24] John Craven: But I think that's a fun experience too for consumers, you know? You feel like you have the in on what's coming next and you can give feedback.
[00:16:33] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, totally. I mean, for a company like Straightaway, it's like, if you like cocktails, like having some cool new stuff show up. And so far, they've all been top notch products. It's kind of fun to give that a try. And you know, they're in a 750 ml bottle, good sharing format. So.
[00:16:50] Mike Schneider: Jackie, speaking of fun new things to try. We definitely missed you yesterday and we talked about you a little bit. My grandma would say your nose was itching, but we met Laura Dadaab, the founder of not Roblo, but Jablo. Jablo. Djablo Hot sauce.
[00:17:08] John Craven: Oh, yeah. So good. I had that in the office a couple of weeks ago and it's very, very tasty.
[00:17:16] Mike Schneider: I told her it's all gone.
[00:17:18] Summer Fancy: Yeah.
[00:17:21] Mike Schneider: So hopefully, uh, some more will arrive. What do you have on your table over there, Jackie, today?
[00:17:28] John Craven: So this is actually funny. So when I went back to visit my family, my mom has been dabbling in cannabis. And she had, you know, the canned roadies, which are little packets. And these are very similar. So this is the whims. Yeah, we just got that to pocket tonics. And it is a little social mixer. This one has four milligrams of CBD and four milligrams of THC. And this one's lemon basil. She's like, open this up, you have this little, it almost looks like a little ketchup packet. But you break it. And then it just goes into any beverage that you choose.
[00:18:04] Mike Schneider: Oh, cool. Choose your own adventure.
[00:18:06] John Craven: Exactly. So my mom has like a new soda stream type thing. And that's just puts those in.
[00:18:12] Jacqui Brugliera: Nice.
[00:18:13] John Craven: But it's kind of like the tick tock water talk trend. You can add this, you know, to anything that you want.
[00:18:18] Jacqui Brugliera: Gotcha. Those little packets are, those are kind of sneaky. I feel like, you know, it's like when Mike's not looking, I'm just going to put like four of those in his coffee.
[00:18:27] Mike Schneider: There I go. How many does your mom like to have? Does she do a half of one or she do a full one? Or is she into two?
[00:18:34] John Craven: Yeah, for the can ones.
[00:18:36] Mike Schneider: The roti one's pretty small.
[00:18:37] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, it's 2.5. Yeah, it's not a lot.
[00:18:40] John Craven: Yeah, that's like my sweet spot, 2.5, you know.
[00:18:42] Jacqui Brugliera: Gotcha.
[00:18:43] John Craven: Something that you could potentially mix it with is I have these parentheses beverages. They're kind of like tonics.
[00:18:51] Jacqui Brugliera: Non-alcoholic, right?
[00:18:52] John Craven: Yeah, non-alcoholic tonics.
[00:18:53] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, they're in spirits bottles.
[00:18:54] John Craven: Yeah, so this one's before, this one's after. I would say they could do a little bit better of communicating on the package what exactly it is.
[00:19:02] Mike Schneider: It looks like whiskey from here. Could be vinegar. I thought it was scotch.
[00:19:06] John Craven: It could be really anything, but when you read more into it, they are caffeine free, non-alcoholic tonics. And this one is supposed to like open your appetite and you're supposed to drink it before dinner. And then this one's supposed to like help you with digestion, but also the flavor profile is supposed to mimic like a cocktail, which you can either mix or drink over ice.
[00:19:28] Jacqui Brugliera: Amazing.
[00:19:29] John Craven: So interesting functions.
[00:19:32] Jacqui Brugliera: Are we gonna try what's in this mystery box over here?
[00:19:33] Mike Schneider: Yeah, we're gonna try what's in this mystery box. Yeah. Last but not least today, you asked for it, you got it. Lexington Bakes now comes in bite size. Yes! We've got Cosmic Forest Cookie. We've got Fleur de Sel Brownie. We've also got, I know we've got hazelnut and chocolate chip number five cookie.
[00:19:55] Jacqui Brugliera: Okay, well, first of all, are they calling these bite-sized or are you? Because this is... I know, it's bigger than a bite. If you took this in one bite... It's not bite-sized, but it's at least single serving. This is like, I'd call this like a... What were those? Were they two-bite brownies? The round ones that came in the World's Hub, right? Like, this is like four-bite brownie.
[00:20:15] Mike Schneider: Yeah, four-bite brownie. It's a really nice little form factor here, though, for a Lexington Bakes. You could see this just being something you grab at the checkout on the way out of Erewhon or whatever, but... They're so cute. They're super cute. I'm going to try... I've got the hazelnut. Jian Doujia?
[00:20:33] John Craven: Yeah, it just makes a lot of sense. I personally would have to break it up into multiple pieces and come back to it because it is so rich and decadent.
[00:20:40] Mike Schneider: Yeah, this is going to take me days to eat. Serving scissors label for this before you to mm-hmm half of brownies is serving 140 calories So yeah, I would say if you eat the full thing 300 calories.
[00:20:55] John Craven: That's like a pretty good sweet spot for people usually I think so Super tasty
[00:21:05] Jacqui Brugliera: I like this. I like the little, um, white box that he's got going on. That's sort of a nice homage to the, uh, his original sort of fancy gift box. Nicely optimized for retail display. A little rip in, uh, a little stand sort of thing.
[00:21:23] John Craven: Yeah. It's perfect for checkout.
[00:21:24] Mike Schneider: It's a cute little stand. QR code that I haven't scanned yet. Real good ingredients, fair trade, non-GMO, you know, things you want in a brownie. So good. Thanks for sending it to us, Lex. That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you so much for listening. Taste Radio is a production of BevNetCom.Inc. BevNetCom.Inc? Yeah, that's what we say. I like that. I think you forgot the dot com. I said dot com.
[00:21:49] Jacqui Brugliera: No, you just said com.
[00:21:50] Mike Schneider: BevNetCom. I did?
[00:21:50] Jacqui Brugliera: BevNetCom.Inc?
[00:21:51] Mike Schneider: Okay.
[00:21:54] Jacqui Brugliera: Don't we have a pre-recorded one of those? Probably. It could be a Ray's voice, who cares? Take it away, Ray.
[00:22:01] An Irish: That brings us to the end of this episode of Taste Radio. Thank you so much for listening. Taste Radio is a production of BevNET.com Incorporated. Our audio engineer for Taste Radio is Joe Cracci. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt, and our video editor is Ryan Galang. Our social marketing manager is Amanda Smerlinski, and our designer is Amanda Huang. Just a reminder, 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. Check us out on Instagram. Our handle is bevnettasteradio. As always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please send us an email to ask at Taste Radio.com. On behalf of the entire Taste Radio team, thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.
[00:22:51] Summer Fancy: you
