[00:00:10] Ray Latif: Hello friends and thanks for tuning in to Taste Radio, the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food and beverage. I'm Ray Latif, the editor and producer of Taste Radio, and I'm with my co-hosts for this episode, John Craven, Jacqui Brugliera, and Mike Schneider. We are recording live. Well, not really live, but on location together in Anaheim, California.
[00:00:33] John Craven: Yes, we're together in person with Jackie. I ran into so many people and they're like, wait, you're not on the East Coast. That is like some crazy magic. They never knew.
[00:00:41] Ray Latif: That is the magic of Joe Cratchy and crew. Yes. Our audio engineer.
[00:00:45] John Craven: Joe. Joe is also in the house. Well, outside because we're outside By The pool.
[00:00:50] Ray Latif: He's on the couch. We are. We're in Anaheim, California for Expo West 2024. We're at the BevNET house, which is located about a half mile from the convention center. There is a pool back here. That's fun. I don't know if anyone's taking a swim yet. Yeah, there's some leaves in the pool. No one clean. Doesn't look very clean. It doesn't look like the... John, how come you didn't clean the pool before we came? Sorry, Ray. You know, it's just, it's the little things. It's the little things. Busy making your steak and eggs. I did not have steak and eggs this morning. Lies. I don't think... I didn't have any food this morning. I just had coffee.
[00:01:17] Jacqui Brugliera: What?
[00:01:17] Ray Latif: We had Aji this morning.
[00:01:18] Jacqui Brugliera: What's Aji? It's Lanza. What's Lanza? Just delicious. It's just, it's, it's, it's hard to describe how delicious it is. It's, it's basically, if you've had shakshuka, you've had a similar taste to aji.
[00:01:31] John Craven: Kind of like a tomato spread.
[00:01:32] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, tomato spread. It's, it's amazing.
[00:01:35] John Craven: Yeah.
[00:01:36] Jacqui Brugliera: There's a spicy version. There's a mild version. We put it on eggs. You can put it on anything really. Did you buy it or was it from the show? We got it from the show. Nice.
[00:01:44] Ray Latif: It must have been really good because Mike is kind of slouching he's kind of like leaning so good I'm just like chill now good on Friday Friday of Expo West we are recording on technically the third day of Expo West Wednesday is when the show started and day three promises to be another action-packed adventure. I don't think, I can't recall seeing, seeing more people at Expo West than this year. And I can't recall seeing more exciting products and brands. Like I have had a ton of fun meeting, eating, and drinking all the amazing people. Well, I'm not eating and drinking people, but I've had, you know what I'm saying? I've had a ton of fun at this show. Yeah, stay away from me and watch out for my teeth.
[00:02:26] Jacqui Brugliera: But no, Ray, to your point, the vibe has been extraordinary this year. I mean, I think people are back in full force. They, everyone wants to, you know, be close and network and talk and, and there's just been so many. There's a lot of close talkers. Yeah, that's true. That is true. There's been, and again, don't get too close to Ray, but the, there's been so many amazing new products from the backpack brands and Touch The ones that, you know, are, are exhibiting just so many people just so inspired this year. You just gave me a good idea, By The way.
[00:02:54] Ray Latif: What's that, Ray? And, you know, I'm just saying this in jest, but what if we had like a little jingle that we could play if people are just a little too close? We play that old police song. It's like an alarm. Don't stand so close to me. Don't stand, you know? Don't stand so close to me, you know? Yeah, I think that's a good idea.
[00:03:12] Jacqui Brugliera: Did I sound exactly like Sting?
[00:03:13] Ray Latif: Yeah, wow, that was a great job. I sound like a fake Jamaican accent. That's kind of what Singh sounds like, though. I'm sorry. Singh is amazing. Singh, if you're listening, I'm sorry. But anyway. Now, John, I mean, you know, this is like, what, your 20th Expo West at this point? And 85,000 people. Did you ever see the show turn into something like this? I mean, it's crazy.
[00:03:32] Mike Schneider: I haven't been to 20 yet, but somewhere up there. I don't know. Somewhere. But no, I mean, it's just progressively gotten bigger over the past decade. I think, you know, now it's feels totally crazy like it did before COVID. So yeah, super busy.
[00:03:46] Ray Latif: What I liked is that it felt like the early stage emerging brands, the ones who literally launched at the show had a good platform. It felt like they saw a lot of people they wanted to see, media, retailers, influencers. service and supplier folks. I talked to a lot of early stage folks, whether it was in the tent, the Fresh Ideas tent, or the Startup CPG section, which was on level 300 of the convention center, or, you know, some of the events that we attended. And it just seemed like they were all really happy that they came. Sometimes I'm actually kind of wary of early stage brands and founders attending because it feels like they can get swallowed up. But if you can actually make, you know, two or three good contacts, if you can talk to a few people and just actually be present, it feels like there is some reward there.
[00:04:25] John Craven: Yeah, and I feel like there was a lot of like early stage brands that were doing things creatively, like they were doing collabs and popping up at other booths like Glow Nuts was at Taika for a morning breakfast and coffee. And then it was that brutal leisure was that brutal. So they were partnering a lot and figuring out ways that they can drive traffic to wherever they were at the show, even if they weren't like exhibiting the full time.
[00:04:47] Jacqui Brugliera: They did a pretty good job of having like happy hours or times that you knew that you could go and just find them at this booth too. And I think for some of these brands that are just trying to get started, getting just a taste of what it's like to exhibit is a good thing. And we saw that with Snackshot, the Snackshot event that always happens right before Expo West. And then also the startup CPG Alley Rally has some really great exhibiting opportunities for early stage brands too, where they can get some of the feedback that they need and and figure out what's next for them. Because, you know, it's funny, you talk about brands like, I know we're going to talk about Kolkata, right? You want to talk about Kolkata's new product. And we were talking to one of the founders, Brianna, and she sounds so much different than she did when we met her initially at Nosh. When Kolkata won, Nosh's pitch slammed. So, you know, at that time they were just so happy to be a brand. And now they talk about their margins and they talk about the products and they're talking about, you know, all the, all the things that are going well and the things that aren't. Cause it's a rollercoaster ride. Every day is either an insane high or a lot of days are insane lows when you have a startup.
[00:05:51] Mike Schneider: And I think, I mean, there were more people this year who were out there on LinkedIn and stuff saying they weren't going and it's so expensive and. You know, I think this is just, I don't know, it's a missed opportunity. You know, maybe you don't need to go big with some giant exhibit, but I mean, I think not going to this is kind of crazy, to be honest.
[00:06:10] Ray Latif: You know who's done an amazing job of networking and being present seemingly everywhere at the show is Kartik from Dusra, which is, I mean, like Dusra is the maker of Indian inspired snacks. It's almost like a trail mix of Indian type nuts or Indian flavored nuts. I don't know if that's something I can say. Yeah, roasted peanuts. Yeah, there you go.
[00:06:28] John Craven: I think like kind of like puffed rice and then caramelized white chocolate. That's the curveball.
[00:06:33] Mike Schneider: That's the deucer.
[00:06:33] Jacqui Brugliera: It's almost like Czech mix or trail mix.
[00:06:35] John Craven: Yeah.
[00:06:36] Jacqui Brugliera: But with an Indian spin. With an Indian spin. Which deucer is a spin ball in cricket. So that's why he named the brand.
[00:06:43] John Craven: Yeah, we were talking to him last night about just like the name and how he didn't want to call it a trail mix because it kind of cheapens it.
[00:06:48] Jacqui Brugliera: Right.
[00:06:49] John Craven: But it is similar to that experience because you are getting like sweet and savory and it's really, really tasty.
[00:06:54] Jacqui Brugliera: I'm glad you didn't call it leg before wicket.
[00:06:57] Ray Latif: He was everywhere. That's someone taking advantage of the opportunities that are presented to you.
[00:07:01] Jacqui Brugliera: I also think one of the things that he does really well is he's found his people, and he's also been standing their brands as well. So he's saying just as much as he wants you to try his brand, he wants you to try all the other brands. I think he really gets the industry, even though he's like, this is my first Expo West, and he's making the most of it in a way that, I don't know, it's like telling me yesterday, if you weren't doing Deuce right, what are you going to do, work for Bebnec? He's just, he knows all the cool stuff.
[00:07:25] John Craven: Yeah, he's like a champion for all other brands, even though he's just getting started.
[00:07:29] Ray Latif: Yeah, we saw him at the Snack Shot event. We saw him at the Startup CPG section. We saw him last night at the Alley Rally. Also at the Alley Rally, I was really impressed by a brand called Xinca Foods. That's X-I-N-C-K, excuse me, C-A. Yeah. And they're a maker of authentic Salvadorian food. We tried their pupusas yesterday, which are essentially corn based. I don't know. How would you describe them?
[00:07:51] John Craven: Like patties. It's like corn patties that are stuffed with like cheese and beans.
[00:07:55] Ray Latif: Oh my goodness. My mouth is watering just thinking about that was fantastic. Woman led brand based in Virginia. And I mean, it's just definitely one of the standouts that I saw at the alley rally.
[00:08:04] Jacqui Brugliera: Did you get to try Rooted Fare? I did not. Rooted Fare is a sesame butter. It almost looks like caviar. So you spread it on. It's, it's super decadent, really tasty. We got to try that yesterday. I've been wanting to try that for a while because people rave about it and finally got to, it's like, I, you know, don't meet your heroes. And there they were.
[00:08:21] Ray Latif: Mike, you also mentioned Cocotta and they came out with a new product called Cocotta Dunks. I'm going to get in trouble here, but it's a better for you Dunkaroos really. It is essentially like you have your spread on one side of your little snacking. Snack pack. Snack pack. You have salty crunchy pretzels on the other side and they are retailing for $1.99, which is crazy. I mean like for a better for you Snack, better for you Dunkaroos. Jared and Brianna from Cocotta were telling me that they are going wide. I'm blanking exactly. I believe they're going National and Sprouts later this month. And they have a whole bunch of other opportunities as well. I highly recommended that they talk Touch The folks from Foxtrot because when I spoke with Michael Avitola, who was the co-founder and CEO of Foxtrot a couple of years ago, I asked him, why do you have Dunkaroos in there? He's like, well, until we have like a better for you Dunkaroos that actually tastes as good as or better than we're not, we're going to keep selling that. Sounds like an opportunity. You guys got to go talk to them.
[00:09:17] John Craven: Yeah, it's really, really good. Yeah, I was talking to her and she was like, yeah, it was so fun just doing all the taste testing and seeing what pairs well with the Cocotta. And that's the fun part.
[00:09:26] Jacqui Brugliera: I love when you two talk to each other because I feel like you're cut from the same cloth.
[00:09:30] John Craven: I mean, they're college athletes. I'm a college athlete. You know, there's some bond there.
[00:09:34] Jacqui Brugliera: Jared played college soccer, I believe. And Brianna? I believe volleyball. Volleyball. Yeah. And Jared's also super into coffee now. So we always talk about grinders. They're just great people, just super nice people. You nerd out on grinders? Yeah. That's weird. Very weird. Joe's even laughing. That's Joe in the background.
[00:09:53] Ray Latif: So the fresh ideas tent on day one on Wednesday is the usual, you know, you get there and it's just just gigantic line of people because it's the first thing you see.
[00:10:00] John Craven: It's the longest line I've ever seen.
[00:10:02] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, I got there early so I could get there, get in there early. John and I, like, we just go into the area ahead of the line and then the next thing you know, we're in the line. found you guys and then the next thing you know we're in the line but we also have some great networking in that in that line because there's everybody's in the same boat as you they're waiting to get in and they just want to find someone to talk to you always found great people and it's the first thing you're doing at the show too so everyone's excited and amped you're like looking for faces that you know in line
[00:10:27] Ray Latif: The first thing I tried, we did a short social video with Alex Jaffe, who is the founder of Alex Ale E C apostrophe S Ice Cream, which is a maker of regenerative verified and USDA organic certified Ice Cream. It uses A2 dairy and they make these indulgent, delicious Ice Cream. They have nine new flavors and one of them that I tried just knocked me over. It was so darn good. It is a flavor of, well, it's a, it's a product that uses banana. chocolate and date. And my goodness, I don't think I've tasted, I've never tasted an Ice Cream like that. It was so indulgent, so delicious. The bananas that you tasted tasted like, I don't know, you mash the bananas and just put them in the Ice Cream yourself. That's how fresh it tasted and how real it tasted.
[00:11:13] Jacqui Brugliera: That stuff was good. We did the flight. They had a flight of Ice Cream. I was just like, it's all of it. John's like, it's a little early.
[00:11:18] John Craven: Right, just starting the day.
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[00:11:48] Ray Latif: Also loved a brand called Humble. They're a maker of potato chips. They're based out of Canada. It's organic potato chips. These actually tasted like potato, which is I know is kind of weird to say. It almost feels like you sliced up potatoes yourself. You put them in some oil and you put them in a bag and that's exactly what you're getting from Humble. They recently launched a new ketchup flavor. Ketchup is something I feel like you'd see like a convenience store, like a ketchup flavor. But, you know, you got to stand out a little bit when it comes to better for you foods and you got to have flavors that people will enjoy. And like Ray's, you know, Ray's potato chips, they have a ketchup flavor, but I've never seen that with any other brands.
[00:12:22] Jacqui Brugliera: Not popular in our part of the country. I don't know. I thought it was great. You want to talk about flavor? Ya Ohaka. I know you haven't been Touch The basement yet, but in Hall E, you have to go to Ya Ohaka and try their mole. They have three different kinds of mole. They're going to blow your mind. It's like you were invited into their home for, for lunch. And right next to that booth is the Harken booth, which I know is one of your favorites. Oh my goodness. They have a new flavor too.
[00:12:45] Ray Latif: Harken is a maker of better for you candy bars. They launched with two varieties, the gooey one and the crunchy one. Now they have the crispy one. The crispy one is what I had on the plane. They sent me some before the show. Oh, awesome. Yeah, I didn't share with anyone. I wouldn't.
[00:13:00] John Craven: I feel like I keep talking to people and they're like, oh, I sent Ray samples.
[00:13:03] Ray Latif: No one ever sees them. Did you get it? Did you try it? Wait, who said that? Well, anyway, so Harken launched the crunchy one and just like I talked about in a previous episode, there is no sacrifice whatsoever on flavor or texture. If you said that this was a full sugar, full calorie bar from like Mars, you know, like the Mars, the manufacturer, not the planet. Yeah, not the planet. Thanks for clarifying, Ray. Alien candy I was barely paying attention, and then I heard you speak and just heard Mars tip of the tongue right there about how about Hershey's yes Not the ish, but anyway. Yeah, you would you would not blink you'd be like yeah This is a Hershey's or a Mars product. It is that good. It is that close the original It is again a zero sacrifice candy might say better. Yeah, I I can't say one of those who just did
[00:13:58] Jacqui Brugliera: There's so many Better For You Candy brands all over the place at Expo West. I was just glad that Harken came out because I thought, you know, Gigantic was the pinnacle at the time. And now there's now there's two, which means maybe more come out and we start to see Better For You Candy just take over.
[00:14:14] Ray Latif: This is not to say that Gigantic isn't a phenomenal product, too. I'm just happy that we're seeing more of these come to market. This is like my dream. I've talked about Snickers and Better For You Snickers all the time. It's like it's actually happening.
[00:14:24] John Craven: I think it's just taking a time because talking to like Gigantic, the founder, Stu was saying that just the formulation is so hard with candy bars, getting like the textures proper and all that stuff with real ingredients. So I think that's what's taken so long. But now that they're figured it out, I just hope that there's going to be more.
[00:14:41] Jacqui Brugliera: Stu in particular is he's meticulous about it. He continuously is reformulating to try to get it just perfect. And some of the things, you know, things we probably don't even notice. Some of them, but he's like, I want it to be less crumbly or I want it to be, you know, a little more mint here.
[00:14:55] Ray Latif: But, you know, to your point, Jack, it definitely feels like Better For You Candy is having a moment. I can't even count the number of brands that I saw at the show that were doing Better For You Candy and like in traditional forms. There was a Better For You Laffy Taffy. I'm blanking. I'm sorry if I'm forgetting the name of the brand. There were Better For You gummies all over the place. Starbursts, Bad Mouths. everything, the strips that we talked about, joyride strips, the gummy worms, all this stuff. It's like, and they're all clearly, at least as far as I can see it, intended to reach older consumers or at least consumers that are not kids. certainly kids are going to be eating these products, but the price points are still at a place where, you know, you're not going to compete with, say, a Starburst, like a, you know, a pack of Starbursts.
[00:15:37] Jacqui Brugliera: Another at the top of the pile, Yum Organic, their Skittles clone or their Skittles, Better Free Skittle. Oh my God. Amazing. Definitely. Hey, Rae, how do you feel about Better Free frosting? And what if it was blue?
[00:15:50] Ray Latif: Let's wait until the end of our right now.
[00:15:52] John Craven: I can't do in the middle of my blue tongue the entire recording.
[00:15:55] Ray Latif: I already lost part of my voice at the startup CPG event last night. So another thing that I saw in terms of sort of, I guess, I don't know, trends that maybe I'm trying to put together or seeing things at the event that I can potentially call a trend. I mean, obviously better for you. So it is. is something that has been trending for a while. You know, Ollie Pop, Poppy, Culture Pop, those are the, you know, the big three right now. But it feels like we're also seeing brands take a different tack and try to get into the space, I guess, adjacent beverages as well. Humm Kombucha recently launched or teased at the show a line of Tapache drinks, glass bottle Tapache drinks.
[00:16:32] Jacqui Brugliera: Back in glass too.
[00:16:33] Ray Latif: Yes, in glass. I believe there are five varieties. The one I tried was actually blue colored. It was a tropical punch. Hey, look at you. I bought that. Colored was spirulina. We also saw Nixie, Nixie Sparkling water brand, launch a zero sugar soda. It's sweetened with stevia. I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but we'll talk about it next week when I have. But I don't know. What else did you see, John? What else did I see? In terms of like that sort of better for you soda or sort of adjacent kind of categories. I don't know.
[00:16:59] Jacqui Brugliera: Were there more? We met the founder of Popoff, who is Better For You, trying to launch out of Vancouver. She's in the midst of formulation, has an early run. It's pretty tasty.
[00:17:09] Ray Latif: I saw a brand called Rockaway, which they make a better for you sodas. They infuse drinks with functional ingredients. The one I'm looking at is called Tidal Defense. It's a berry and hibiscus flavor. It has vitamin C. What is that? Austral August. Does anyone know what Austral August is?
[00:17:26] John Craven: Sounds like a bacteria or something.
[00:17:27] Ray Latif: It does sound like that, or perhaps a mushroom and sea salt. Sounds like a Greek dictator. That's in a fair amount of products. Australagus? I don't know what it is, but... Oh, interesting. Well, if anyone knows what it is, please send us a note to ask at Taste Radio.com because we're clueless.
[00:17:41] John Craven: Please educate us.
[00:17:42] Ray Latif: We don't have Google. We don't have the Google. Moss is a beverage that I really enjoy too. Sea moss based beverage. Again, I think, you know, sort of straddling that line between functional and refreshment. I mean, I think five, six years ago, this would have been the most funky functional product you could see on the market, but outstanding branding, just beautiful to look at. It just feels like it has lifestyle just written all over it. And the products just taste amazing. They have really good tasting
[00:18:10] John Craven: I think for something that's like so functional and people still don't really understand what it does because there's so many things, so many benefits that goes with CMOS. Like it is just the branding that's so approachable and the flavor that drives it home. So it's just like a quality beverage that has function like tied to it.
[00:18:26] Mike Schneider: Yeah, I mean, and you know, it does taste pretty awesome, which I think, you know, for a new ingredient, it's nice that they've actually focused on that instead of going like really heavy handed with a functional ingredient, which has also like a pretty big educational hurdle with it.
[00:18:41] Jacqui Brugliera: So it's a new ingredient that if you saw it, it looks, it looks a lot more like steel wool than an ingredient you'd want to drink.
[00:18:46] John Craven: Yeah. And if I think we've talked about them in the past, but Jolly Moss, they were walking the show floor and they were backpacking and they had their CMOS pudding, which talking about, you know, making something tasty. It's so good. It's really, really good. And for CMOS, that's, that's impressive. Yeah. Really, really nice.
[00:19:06] Ray Latif: saw the folks from Better Booch as well. They bought Live Soda and are introducing a brand refresh for that line, which looks amazing. It totally has this sort of like 1973 vibe. I think someone at the booth told me that it kind of felt like a retro basketball jersey, like, you know, from like the 1970s.
[00:19:28] Jacqui Brugliera: Definitely.
[00:19:29] Ray Latif: Yeah, it has that kind of look. So they're launching that pretty soon. They also, they're refreshing the Better Brute brand too.
[00:19:34] Jacqui Brugliera: Did you notice that? Oh, they did not know. Yeah, they've picked up a minor refresh. They've just kicked up the typeface a bit and changed it and tweaked it a little bit to kind of go with the fact that they're rebranding the Lively. And then also, Ray, what about their native, the big bottle stuff? Oh my gosh, it's what they describe as an alt wine.
[00:19:52] Ray Latif: I really like that. I loved it. It's really, really hard to do non-alcohol in my opinion. This is a sparkling though. Yeah, but that's what I'm saying. Like Nixie Sparkling varieties they've had are usually pretty good. This one, they knocked it out of the park with.
[00:20:05] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, I thought so too. The rosé is something I would reach for. The rosé, you know, clone. And then they have a brute as well.
[00:20:12] Mike Schneider: A white. Super small batch. Trey said he hand filled the bottles himself. I'm not, I'm not sure that that's going to be for sale.
[00:20:19] Jacqui Brugliera: Ashley Lockerby drew the logo by hand in one try. So, I mean, it's just, it's really good. It looks, it looks super premium. Yeah, definitely pretty cool. Yeah.
[00:20:28] Ray Latif: Can we talk about Pockets Chocolates for a second? Yes, please. All right. I stumbled upon the booth.
[00:20:32] Jacqui Brugliera: You had to ask.
[00:20:33] Ray Latif: I didn't, I didn't stumble upon it, but I came upon the booth with Mike and John just like drooling their tongues on the floor. And I'm like, what are you guys eating? And they were eating this new churro variety of their covered almonds. which is definitely one of the best things I've eaten at the show.
[00:20:49] Mike Schneider: Tastes like a churro. You better keep those away from me.
[00:20:51] Ray Latif: It is unbelievably good. It's made with oat milk. They also have a strawberry variety that they launched at the show.
[00:20:57] Jacqui Brugliera: And then of course we were eating the black sesame as well because that's their like classic. That was amazing. They have matcha. They also teased or they showed us a collaboration they did with Blue Bottle, which was pretty cool. Yeah. Then New Orleans chicory. Excellent. Oh wait, no it isn't. Yeah.
[00:21:10] Mike Schneider: Oh, it's the Nola coffee. Yeah, it's their signature. That's right. That's right.
[00:21:13] Ray Latif: Blue Bottle signature coffee. Quite good. Not too far from the Pockets Chocolates booth, I came upon a brand that I'd never heard of called Dell Origin. They're a Colombian based brand. The owner is just full of energy. She's a firecracker. She talked about the entire brand and did it in 15 seconds and it was just pretty amazing. And then I tried some of their arepa bites, which are corn based bites and they're also filled with cheese and things like that. I guess cheese and beans and so on. Just fantastic stuff. And as you guys all know, I'm not a big cheese person, but these tasted amazing. They're not, I guess they're, they're along the same lines as like a Brazilian cheese bite, but a little bit denser, a little bit sweeter. And they also had some churros.
[00:21:52] John Craven: Yeah, they had gluten-free churros, which were really good. They also had like a guava and cheese waffle. They were all really, really tasty.
[00:21:59] Jacqui Brugliera: Guess it will waffle.
[00:22:01] John Craven: Yeah, Monica stopped By The.
[00:22:03] Jacqui Brugliera: She saw him. For sure. Did you try the new Hayo? Did you see that the new Beverage Showdown champions, Hayo, who are notoriously, not stingy, what's the word I'm looking for? Jeez. No, no, it's not the word. Of course, they're the cheapest people we know. No, no, that's not what I mean. They're notorious for not wanting to put out new SKUs. So many brands are consistently trying to find the next flavor. They're very focused. Yeah, they're super focused, but they finally found one that they're happy with and it's Strawberry Guava.
[00:22:29] Ray Latif: I really enjoyed going By The Kor Shots booth, K-O-O-R. I was expecting to see just new flavors, new varieties of their shots, which are amazing and really surprised and excited to see that they launched a new line of sports hydration beverages. These come in 16 ounce bottles, 16 ounce plastic bottles. They have four varieties. They have a Superfood Quench, which is blue, also blue from Spirulina, which I enjoyed. A Tropical Punch variety, a Citrus Refresh, and a hydra, I'm sorry, an orange ginger. All of them were fantastic. I talked Touch The folks at the booth there. I didn't see Jordan, who's the founder. He was there, but we did. Yeah. Yeah. He was hiding from you. He was hiding from me because he knows I like to clear him out of the house and home over there. I think he likes us too. He's like, you guys want a shot? I think he just wants to get rid of us actually. He's just like, please just take this and leave me alone. No, no, he's not like this. A very, very nice guy. But you know, they were talking about the, the opportunity in sports drinks and all the traction that you're seeing for brands like Prime and Body Armor and you know, obviously the legacy brands as well, but they're not for the natural consumer. I'll just leave it at that. And it seemed like they saw a hole and they sought to fill it. I believe, again, this is something that I have to give a disclaimer here. I believe they said they're going to Sprouts nationally soon.
[00:23:48] Jacqui Brugliera: Speaking of holes to fill, last year seemed to be, you know, dumplings came onto the scene pretty strongly. So many dumplings. So much bouts out there. So it's dumplings and Bao. One of the ones that we tried was Omni. We also tried one called Sobo, which I think in spite of them being Tottenham fans, pretty good stuff.
[00:24:08] John Craven: Yeah, really tasty. They had like four skews and all of them were plant based and they had like plant based meats. And it was funny on the packaging. They flipped the word upside down. So you knew that like it wasn't actually pork, but in the fact that you know something isn't.
[00:24:21] Mike Schneider: Yeah, I've never seen that before. So that was an interesting packaging approach.
[00:24:25] Jacqui Brugliera: Also very tasty. Very Tottenham. What? We had a funny interaction there because I was asking them about their different varieties and one of them was potato curry. And the founder was saying that that was the hardest sell. And I was like, you know, this would, this would kill in the UK. And there was someone next to me is like, can confirm. It was pretty, pretty hilarious.
[00:24:44] John Craven: Yeah, there was a lot of great Asian flavors. I also saw a million different kimbops, which I don't know. It's kind of like a sushi roll with veggies and other things inside. And Ocean's Halo came out with one, and there was a couple other brands that came out with kimbops. We ran into Sozu, which is like a matcha beverage at Startup CPG, and they had a durian. Did you try it? Yeah, I tried the durian.
[00:25:05] Ray Latif: Was it stinky?
[00:25:06] John Craven: It was stinky, but it could have been stinkier.
[00:25:09] Ray Latif: I've had stinkier durian. I saw John and Jack and they're like, great, you got to try this. And it's, By The way, it's going to be really, really stinky. And I was like, what are you guys talking about?
[00:25:19] Jacqui Brugliera: We had to play it up. I got to see them.
[00:25:21] Ray Latif: No, but it has like, it has like a pungent aroma, but it's not something you would run away from. No, durian is known to clear rooms though.
[00:25:29] Mike Schneider: Yeah, really? That is, you cut it.
[00:25:30] Ray Latif: With full fruit. Okay. Yeah.
[00:25:33] Mike Schneider: Only a little bit in each can.
[00:25:34] Ray Latif: I was not aware of it, but it was, it was a delicious tasting product. I feel like the, the aroma wasn't so off putting that you're not going to enjoy drinking
[00:25:42] John Craven: Yeah, I mean, also, if you're drinking a fermented product, too, it's like kind of the same experience of like a hard Apache or something like that.
[00:25:48] Ray Latif: One more is these are the folks I met at the alley rally, the founders of Mizo, M-I-Z-O, a maker of hard lemonade packaged in a pouch. Yes. Yes. So have you ever thought of having like an alcoholic Capri Sun?
[00:26:03] John Craven: Like an adult Capri Sun.
[00:26:05] Ray Latif: I was showing this to people yesterday and they were like, That's such a good idea. Why didn't I think of that? Well, clearly the folks from Mezo did. Yeah, they did. And they are apparently doing quite well. They talked about the amount of retail and distribution that they're getting with this product. The one I'm holding in my hand is their Mango Passion Fruit, right? It's a little bit bigger than a Capri Sun. This is 10 ounces.
[00:26:25] Mike Schneider: I know it says big and in yellow contains alcohol, but do you think the kids who might grab that can read that? There are a couple products that have alcohol in pouches. This is not the only one. I mean, It's it's certainly like the immediate thing that everyone says when they see them.
[00:26:40] Ray Latif: So, yeah, I haven't seen any, though. I mean, I'm not sure. Maybe I'm just blanking on other ones on the market. I don't know how many are still on the market, but there are definitely a bunch that have launched. So, well, the person that I didn't see who apparently was trying to find me was Michelle Razavi from Alavi. Alavi, a maker.
[00:26:57] Jacqui Brugliera: She really wanted to find you. Yeah, she was hunting you down.
[00:27:00] Ray Latif: Fantastic people, her and co-founder Nikki Elliott, who are the two co-founders of Alavi. So they have a new, is this new?
[00:27:08] Jacqui Brugliera: It's new. Vanilla frosting. Yeah. They kind of leaned into the frostings in bigger formats and they're crushing it in Costco right now. Okay. All right. Well, here we're going to try it.
[00:27:18] Ray Latif: And I do want to note before I try this that I'm excited, but in case like I, you know, I can't speak because it's so delicious or there's just too much frosting in my mouth. We're going to continue our coverage of Expo West. Obviously we have a lot more to talk about. We have a lot more to see today, so please stay tuned. And if we know we maybe didn't talk about your brand or product, just stay tuned. We'll be talking about it. I'm sure we have more in the pipeline. Also. That'll be coming up in future episodes.
[00:27:43] Expo West: On BevNET.
[00:27:44] Ray Latif: and Nosh. Yes, I'm an insider to get the full coverage. There you go. Good plug.
[00:27:48] John Craven: OK, I think it's time.
[00:27:50] Ray Latif: OK, it's time.
[00:27:51] John Craven: Get ready for your mouth to turn blue.
[00:27:53] Ray Latif: Oh geez. And we got Amanda Smerlinski taking a video of me here. OK, put my microphone on.
[00:27:59] Mike Schneider: Here we go. Oh geez, look at this. It looks like paint. Yeah, he's eating paint chips. Doesn't taste like paint. It looks like frosting.
[00:28:06] John Craven: Yeah, right. Here we go. This is the year Ray likes blue things.
[00:28:11] Jacqui Brugliera: Stick out your tongue, Ray. No.
[00:28:14] John Craven: I saw a hint of it. I saw the blue tongue.
[00:28:17] Ray Latif: It's very delicious. It's very thick. It's actually something I would love to put on like a muffin, like a morning muffin or a pancake or something like that. It tastes amazing. It is incredibly blue. It's impossibly blue. It is bluer than the pool chairs out there, which is kind of amazing, but it is delicious.
[00:28:39] Jacqui Brugliera: Well done.
[00:28:41] Ray Latif: The one thing I just felt like was missing from this show, and I just, I'm so, I don't know. I just, I just think that there should just be more of an emphasis on cognitive health. I just didn't see enough brain health. functionality on the floor. And if only people knew of an amazing, groundbreaking ingredient called Cognizant, which is a clinically tested nootropic ingredient that delivers a patented form of citric choline to supply your brain and those of your consumers with the energy it needs to stay sharp, they would be a much happier brand founder and attendee of Expo West. You can learn more about Cognizant by going to their website. Cognizant.com. C-O-G-N-I-Z-I-N dot com.
[00:29:28] Jacqui Brugliera: Thank you for sponsoring Taste Radio.
[00:29:30] Ray Latif: Yes, and thank you so much for sponsoring Taste Radio, Cognizant. Did you write the URL down? Because you need some. I did. Just don't fall into the pool. That brings us Touch 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.
[00:30:29] Expo West: you
