[00:00:10] Ray Latif: Hello, and thanks for tuning into Taste Radio, the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food New Beverage. I'm Ray Latif, the editor and producer of Taste Radio, and I'm here with my co-hosts, John Craven, Jacqui Brugliera, and Mike Schneider. In this episode, we're joined by Luke Montgomery-Smith co-founder of Plink, a brand of effervescent electrolyte tablets that are designed to enhance hydration for its consumers. Plink! Love saying that name. Great to see Luke and the team at the San Diego meetup hosted by Naturally San Diego a couple of weeks ago, maybe three weeks ago now. I have no, I have no concept of time right now. I'm just, I'm between coasts. I'm in the Southeast right now. I was in the Northeast this morning. I was in the Southwest a couple of days ago, a week ago. I don't know. Time is just, it's very abstract at this point for me.
[00:01:03] Luke Montgomery-Smith: I mean, you made the most of your Northeast experience this morning, though, just housing the Chase Sapphire lounge, right?
[00:01:11] Ray Latif: I did take advantage of some of the food offerings. They had a nice huevos rancheros and then I had some bao sandwiches.
[00:01:18] John Craven: Ray got the sample pack.
[00:01:19] Ray Latif: He basically got one of everything. It was pretty impressive.
[00:01:22] John Craven: Sounded like they had a variety too.
[00:01:25] Ray Latif: They did. It was very good. And today is the 10th of February, but when most people are listening to this, it is of course Valentine's Day. Happy Valentine's Day to all. I say that, but then every time I talk about Valentine's Day in private, I'm like, curse this day. It's a made up holiday invented by Hallmark. There's no point to this. I don't know. Jackie, do you celebrate Valentine's Day?
[00:01:49] John Craven: Uh, yeah, I'm forced to. I'm kind of like you, Ray. I think it's a Hallmark holiday, but my partner really likes it, so I do it for her.
[00:01:56] Ray Latif: Okay, well, that's nice. Mike seems like Valentine's Day is just not top of the list for his agenda. I mean, my wife and I are pretty... You seem like a romantic guy. I just, I mean, you know.
[00:02:11] Luke Montgomery-Smith: Thanks, Ray. I'll take that from you.
[00:02:13] SPEAKER_??: Oh boy.
[00:02:18] Luke Montgomery-Smith: Anywho, we'll just move on from that.
[00:02:21] John Craven: Sounds like we're all not very romantic.
[00:02:23] Ray Latif: Yeah, well, I mentioned today's the 10th. Yesterday was the 9th. And the Super Bowl, I believe, Super Bowl 59, L-I-X, that's 59, yes, was held yesterday. And congratulations to the Eagles and all the Philly fans out there. I hope you stayed safe. I saw lots of traffic lights being pulled down and some cars being flipped over and whatnot.
[00:02:48] Luke Montgomery-Smith: It's funny that it was LIX, right? Cause I just kept saying Super Bowl licks. Super Bowl licks. Such a bad game. Oh my God.
[00:02:56] Ray Latif: Nice. Nice. So bad. Did you watch Super Bowl?
[00:03:00] Jacqui Brugliera: What's Super Bowl, right?
[00:03:01] Ray Latif: Yeah.
[00:03:02] Jacqui Brugliera: There's a, there's your answer. That was, yeah, it was boring. Boring. How about that?
[00:03:08] Ray Latif: Boring. Okay. Well, nobody really watched it for the game anyway, right? You watch it with the commercials. So.
[00:03:13] Jacqui Brugliera: I mean, I guess, although when it's like, uh, what was it? 34 or nothing at halftime.
[00:03:18] John Craven: Is that right? Yeah.
[00:03:20] Jacqui Brugliera: You know, kind of takes the wind out of the desire to watch commercials even. Fair enough.
[00:03:24] John Craven: I don't know. The Eagles were putting on a show though. And if you don't want the chiefs to win, then that was a good game.
[00:03:33] Ray Latif: Yeah, well, the Eagles did indeed prevail, but in terms of who won the commercials, who won the big game commercials, so to speak, I feel like Liquid Death really did a great job. I don't know. I feel like Liquid Death and Nike had the best ads.
[00:03:49] John Craven: Yes.
[00:03:51] Luke Montgomery-Smith: I just chucked a Liquid Death to our pilot this morning, right? Did you? On our flight. Oh, yeah. Drink on the job, buddy. Nice.
[00:03:58] Ray Latif: Well, that was the thing. That was their whole thing.
[00:04:00] Luke Montgomery-Smith: It was amazing.
[00:04:01] Ray Latif: I mean, the commercial was about people drinking Liquid Death in random work scenarios. And it was everyone from a police officer to a bus driver. And I was with some folks when watching the game and somehow they weren't aware of Liquid Death. I felt like a lot of people know what it is at this point. But apparently there's quite a few that don't. And they were like, whoa, whoa, what's going on here? This is a beer ad. Like, you're supposed to be drinking beer. Like, what are they trying to say here? They were freaking out.
[00:04:30] Mike Schneider: Hilarious.
[00:04:31] Ray Latif: And I'm like, no, it's water. But at the end of the ad, they're like, it's fine. It's water. And they had their colas as well or their sodas as well. And I'm like, wow, that's an effective ad. I mean, you really shocked people thinking that you're encouraging people to drink alcohol in these professional scenarios.
[00:04:51] John Craven: They've done a great job of just like, you know, focusing on the instances where you shouldn't be drinking alcohol. Like I believe last year it was a bunch of kids like having a rager with a bunch of water. So they're just like really focusing on that. And this one was, yeah, hilarious.
[00:05:07] Luke Montgomery-Smith: I mean, if any brand is good at pushing buttons, it's Liquid Death for a fact. I mean, just go listen to their death metal albums on Spotify, whole albums that they put out every year. And also, don't forget, they once made vegan human meat too. So I mean, these guys are good at what they do. Yes.
[00:05:27] Ray Latif: Don't be scared. It's just water. I hope people saw that at the end. I hope they passed out before that. There might have been a few people like Colin Fox, the Super Bowl was on Fox and dialing up their customers. Do they still have customer service? I hope they were already reporting it to their Congress people, you know? Yeah. Do you remember back in the day you would watch like a movie and someone would say something kind of incendiary and it was like an old movie and all of a sudden they would cut to like the, the operator lines at the office of said network. It was, I think this was like the Howard Stern movie. What were the private parts? Private parts was, uh, when he started to say some weird stuff and all of a sudden the lines started blowing up. But, uh, I, I, I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happened with Liquid Death.
[00:06:18] Luke Montgomery-Smith: Those were the days when you could just blow up the lines. Some old people calling.
[00:06:23] Ray Latif: Poppy on the other hand, Poppy went back to back years now with the Sue Roll, 8 million bucks is what I understand the spend was for a 30 second ad. And for me, it was less memorable than the one last year. And maybe it's just because the ad wasn't for me, you know, it was meant for you know, their target audience, Gen Z consumers who are looking for a better-for-you option and can relate to some of the folks that they had in their ad. I believe Alix Earl, who is a well-known influencer, was featured in the ad.
[00:06:58] John Craven: Yeah, it gave me big influencer vibes. Like there was a feature of a guy from Love Island and I mean, I think their demographic is probably watching Love Island, but a lot of like just random celebrities or very niche celebrities and influencers on there and like a younger demographic.
[00:07:15] Ray Latif: Yeah, I would say so. And the other part of this that I didn't notice any ads for were the Big Soda companies. Were there ads for Coke and Pepsi and Dr. Pepper? I don't recall seeing any.
[00:07:27] Jacqui Brugliera: If there was a Lay's ad, does that count?
[00:07:30] Ray Latif: No.
[00:07:31] Jacqui Brugliera: Doritos, does that count? Say it's part of PepsiCo, you know? Okay, fair enough. But... Yeah, and Doritos, that's right.
[00:07:38] Ray Latif: Well, yeah. But usually, I mean, Pepsi used to have a very big presence at the Super Bowl. It was like the Pepsi Halftime Show. Yeah.
[00:07:45] Jacqui Brugliera: Or the old Coke Polar Bear ads, you know? Yes. So instead we got, you know, Willem Dafoe, like, you know, acting like he's tweaking the fun.
[00:07:58] Luke Montgomery-Smith: And play pickleball too, that was amazing.
[00:08:01] John Craven: Yeah, lots of beer.
[00:08:03] Luke Montgomery-Smith: Did you catch Randy Moss in that ad?
[00:08:04] John Craven: He's like, we're athletes.
[00:08:07] Luke Montgomery-Smith: Did not see that. Don't recall that one. Oh, that one was amazing.
[00:08:10] John Craven: Red Bull had one with penguins, but their Red Bull was frozen. And so they couldn't drink the Red Bull. Not quite sure about that one.
[00:08:19] Jacqui Brugliera: Plastic kind of Red Bull ad. I don't know. That seemed like no offense, but you couldn't do something a little better.
[00:08:25] John Craven: Right?
[00:08:25] Luke Montgomery-Smith: I like the Jeep ad the best. I like Harrison Ford.
[00:08:29] John Craven: He's awesome. He's like, my last name is Ford.
[00:08:32] Luke Montgomery-Smith: He's like, I really like this Jeep, even though my last name is Ford.
[00:08:37] Ray Latif: That's amazing. Well, once again, I'm wondering why Harrison Ford is doing these things. If you recall from last week, it turns out that Harrison Ford is the new face of Glenn Marenghi and just a Scotch. I'm like, right, guy's worth $300 million.
[00:08:50] Luke Montgomery-Smith: And a Jeep.
[00:08:50] John Craven: And now for Jeep.
[00:08:52] Luke Montgomery-Smith: cuz he can't he's got he's got some time you know he's alright let's make a few more bucks he's popular doing his thing he's got some time left on earth is that what you're trying to say come on that guy's awesome he's got years to go we found out last week that mike likes harrison ford harrison ford is great yes
[00:09:10] Ray Latif: But one thing that came out of the fact that there were no Coke or Pepsi ads was, again, when I was watching the Super Bowl yesterday, someone said, are you guys at Bethany, are you guys going to talk about like how Diet Coke is like back and like on a tear? They're like, everyone I know is drinking Diet Coke. And it's not just... you know, the people that you would expect to be drinking Diet Coke, like folks in their 40s and 50s and even older than that, it's younger consumers are drinking Diet Coke. I'm like, I don't think so. Haven't heard anything about that. I think I would know if that were happening, but maybe, maybe I'm wrong. Are you guys see people drinking more Diet Coke? Is there something going on that I'm not aware of?
[00:09:50] Jacqui Brugliera: I mean, Coke Zero maybe, but I can't really say I noticed people drinking more Diet Coke.
[00:10:00] Ray Latif: No. And maybe there are things that are happening. I guess what was brought up was that Dua Lipa was in some sort of Diet Coke ad or like she did some Instagram ad or placement. I don't know exactly what it was. maybe that's their strategy nowadays is doing less of the broad, big commercial kind of marketing and doing a lot more targeted stuff that just we aren't seeing as much. I don't know, but I was just, I'm just trying to do some, I just shared an anecdote and I was trying to get some anecdotal information out of you guys. And it sounds like that person is way, way off. You're way, way off. I haven't seen it.
[00:10:40] John Craven: Yeah, I haven't seen either.
[00:10:42] Ray Latif: Well, I hope people get to see more of this brand pretty soon. This is NeuWater. N-E-A-U.
[00:10:48] Luke Montgomery-Smith: You mean NeuWater, right?
[00:10:49] Ray Latif: Yes, I mean NeuWater. NeuWater is a new brand or at least an emerging brand of bottled water. They have a process which apparently strips all the bad out of water and keeps all of the good. I think that's the best way for me to describe it without getting too technical. And I say thanks to the folks at Neau Water because they are a big partner of ours for our Miami meetup. Again, today's the 10th, so tomorrow we'll be holding that meetup and we'll tell you all about it in the next episode of Taste Radio, but we're expecting a great turnout. And I just visited the venue just to check it out. It looks great. And once again, appreciate the partnership of Neau Water as well as Matriarch. Wealth Management and Lally Pack, all of whom are helping out and yeah, expecting a really, really good time here in Miami. I should have mentioned when I said I was in the Southeast, I should have been more specific and said, I am.
[00:11:47] John Craven: Yeah, you're so mysterious, mysterious man, jet setting everywhere.
[00:11:51] Ray Latif: Yeah, we're in the Wynwood neighborhood, the Wynwood district of Miami, which is really artsy, just graffiti, like well done graffiti, if that makes any sense, on pretty much every building over here. It feels like there's a lot of gentrification that's happening at the same time. So it feels like this was a very sort of you know, live-as-you-are kind of community. And now, like everything in America, you know, if you're close enough to the water or you wanted to live in a certain part of America, it's getting expensive and every part is becoming a little bit more cookie-cutter.
[00:12:25] Luke Montgomery-Smith: Miami's getting taller. It's a tall city.
[00:12:27] Ray Latif: Yes, it is surprisingly tall. Well, I mean, as far as New Beverage go, I got to tell you, I'm away. So I don't have access to a lot of the stuff that we're seeing come into the office. But Jackie, you're in the office right now. What do you got?
[00:12:43] John Craven: I have one. I got one New Beverage, which is Remedy Organics's new Tropical Greens Protein, which should be at Expo West. I've already drank three-fourths of it. It's pretty tasty. But yeah, this one has kale, spirulina, mango, MCT oil, prebiotics, and it is using vegan protein, I believe, as well. So nice and tasty, a little bit sweeter. Got your greens and your protein.
[00:13:08] Luke Montgomery-Smith: I got to try one of those last week. Those are pretty tasty. They also sent us their extraordinarily awesome shots too. Got some good citrus and some turmeric.
[00:13:16] John Craven: Yeah, I've got to build up the immunity before Expo West, so be chugging a lot of those.
[00:13:22] Ray Latif: I was expecting a lot of hate from last week's episode when I told people not to go to Expo West, which is not exactly what I said. I said there are reasons why you may not want to go to Expo West, and these are valid reasons. I mean, we trolled you at every point, so hopefully that... That was helpful. Yeah, John made it very clear on LinkedIn that I was only speaking for myself and not for anyone else. Right. And then it was... Oh, get us all banned, right. Right. It was cleared by the Bevanette attorneys at law, of which, you know, we're in constant contact with. Thanks to you. The running joke on the podcast. Each time I say it, John gets even more frustrated by me. I'll stop. Can I talk about eggs for a second? Because it just reminded me a couple of years ago when I was at Expo West, I did see a brand and a product that I absolutely adored. And that was Wonder Eggs by Crafty Counter. And these are the plant-based hard-boiled eggs. And it feels like that's kind of timely for now, right? Given the egg shortages and the amount of money that it costs to get a dozen eggs. Want to go get some more taste or try out some plant-based eggs?
[00:14:29] John Craven: Yeah. I mean, why not? Yeah. I found this actually funny meme where speaking of Valentine's day, it was like, take me somewhere expensive. And these two people are just sitting next to the egg aisle in the grocery store. I mean, some grocery stores, they literally have like limits. You can only take one carton of eggs at a time. It's getting kind of crazy over there.
[00:14:47] Ray Latif: I don't know. I got a good habit. It's like toilet paper during the pandemic.
[00:14:50] John Craven: Yeah.
[00:14:52] Ray Latif: My personal Hack Vs shopping at Wegmans. Shout out to Wegmans because they've got... That's not a hack, Ray.
[00:14:59] Luke Montgomery-Smith: That's a tip.
[00:15:01] Ray Latif: Okay. Well, fine.
[00:15:03] Jacqui Brugliera: It's a tip. What's the hack here?
[00:15:05] Ray Latif: What's the hack? The Hack Vs you go to Wegmans and you stock up on eggs and they're still gonna have more tomorrow. So don't worry about that. Yeah. Because when you go to when you get all these other grocery stores, Whole Foods, which is crazy, I was at Whole Foods a week ago. And they had a sign in the egg aisle, they had no eggs available. And there's a sign in the egg aisle that says, the eggs that we're trying to source or the eggs that are available for us to source do not meet our standards. I'm like, wow, which is kind of strange, too, because I did, I did see Vital Eggs, I did see Vital Farms eggs at other grocery stores, but not at Whole Foods, which is kind of surprising.
[00:15:39] Luke Montgomery-Smith: Ray, I keep seeing people misuse hack and it's like so overused that we're going to get past it. But I just need to get this off my chest. The difference between a tip you saying go to Wegmans and buy eggs, they're going to be there tomorrow. And a Hack Vs the hack would be, oh, you can go through the you can go through the air duct and you can Mission Impossible down and grab some eggs and get out of there and get eggs for free.
[00:16:03] John Craven: That's OK.
[00:16:04] Luke Montgomery-Smith: That would be a hack.
[00:16:05] John Craven: It's like a cheat code.
[00:16:07] Ray Latif: One might call me a hack host for describing my tip as a hack. How about that? You are a hack, yes. That is another good use of hack. Okay, fair enough. I love it, Ray. Thanks. Just staying on the egg front for a second, our dear friend and colleague Martín Caballero posted this the other day, and I saw this on the news. Waffle House is actually charging a surcharge. for eggs, which is kind of crazy. I mean, come on, how long is this really going to last? It's not going to last very long. So why are you charging your customers an extra 50 cents? I mean, is Waffle House really going to be long-term affected to the point where they have to, you know, charge an extra 50 cents for eggs? Come on, that's kind of ridiculous.
[00:16:45] John Craven: It's another reason to charge more, I guess. I mean, people do charge more for avocado. So it's like yet another add-on when you're figuring out your breakfast order.
[00:16:54] Ray Latif: That is a good point. You know what? Before the proposed tariffs in this country were about to be enacted or deployed or whatever you want to call them, and they decided to wait, the US government that is, I was a little concerned that the price of avocados was going to go through the roof. And I think they went through the roof preemptively because the day before the tariffs were about to take effect, And that being, I think, was it a 25 or 50% tariff on goods coming from Canada and Mexico? I believe it was 25. 25. I don't know.
[00:17:33] Jacqui Brugliera: It was changing day by day, wasn't it?
[00:17:35] Ray Latif: Yeah. Yeah. The expectation was that things like avocados were going to be much pricier. And so I went to Trader Joe's and typically I get like four avocados, four organic avocados for, I don't know, it's like five bucks. It was like $7.50 or whatever. Come on. It's like, come on, come on.
[00:17:50] John Craven: Crazy.
[00:17:51] Ray Latif: Yeah. Crazy.
[00:17:53] John Craven: Yeah.
[00:17:54] Ray Latif: Well, how are we going to have our avocado toast? It's going to be like 40 bucks. I don't know. I saw you got some nice looking lunch on your table there when I dropped off your gear. I did.
[00:18:05] Luke Montgomery-Smith: There's a place called Mama next door to us, Ray. We got to go there. I mean, I grabbed a squash salad because I didn't really eat anything at the Chase Sapphire Lounge this morning.
[00:18:15] Ray Latif: What? Missed opportunity.
[00:18:17] Luke Montgomery-Smith: I know.
[00:18:18] Ray Latif: You had the bowl of huevos rancheros that looked like it was licked clean. What are you talking about?
[00:18:24] Luke Montgomery-Smith: I did have a little bit of that.
[00:18:25] Ray Latif: He blacked out. I didn't have a relative portion and I regretted it. All right, well, just to tie this up neatly. I don't mean to give you grief, Mike, because I did have a minor lunch myself and it was a half an Italian sub that I did pack in my bag.
[00:18:46] Luke Montgomery-Smith: Ray had a pocket sub, Jackie. He took a sub out of his pocket on the plane. Nice and warm. I am so glad I did not travel with you guys.
[00:18:55] Ray Latif: This is a classic. You have the cereal, you order tons of food, and you know, you order too much. And I had like, yeah, basically another foot and a half of some.
[00:19:12] Luke Montgomery-Smith: No, no, no, not a foot and a half. He just put it in his trench coat.
[00:19:19] Ray Latif: I wrapped up most of them and I put them, I cut out, I cut the whole thing up into like fourths. And so I had a fourth, which was a big fourth. And then he brought some for TSA. And yeah, TSA actually did look at my bag this morning, ironically. Can we get some, Ray?
[00:19:35] John Craven: Ray, I'm surprised you didn't get any, Mike. I know.
[00:19:40] Ray Latif: I would have taken some pockets up. Mike was in the back of the bus next to the toilet. True story, unfortunately. I was.
[00:19:48] Luke Montgomery-Smith: I sat in the restroom this time. I was in group E, guys. I didn't even know there was a group E. Wow.
[00:19:53] Ray Latif: I know. They took my bag. E for egregious. Yes, that's an egregious way of flying for sure. John just threw up a little bit. All right, let's get to our featured interview for this episode. That's with Luke Montgomery-Smith, the co-founder of Plink. Launched in 2022, the Vermont-based brand markets flavored, electrolyte-infused tablets. When dissolved in water, they create effervescent and hydrating beverages. A past winner of BevNET's New Beverage Showdown, Plink is sold at GNC stores nationally, along with dozens of independent retailers, as well as online via its website and Amazon. In the following conversation, Luke talks about the evolution of Plink's messaging, from one focused on sustainability to that of product attributes, why he describes Magnesium as a game-changer for the brand, and how the company considers merchandising as part of its retail strategy. Hey, folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now, I am supremely honored to be sitting down with Luke Montgomery-Smith, who's one of the co-founders of Plink. How are you? I'm exceptionally well, Ray. I love that. Exceptionally well. Yeah. You know what? That just makes me really, really happy because there's well, which is good, and then there's exceptionally well, which is, hey, that's your year. Just like really, really well. You're feeling it.
[00:21:22] Naturally San: I'm feeling it. I've escaped the cold of Vermont. I'm down here in San Diego. That's true, yes. It's been shorts and t-shirt weather today.
[00:21:29] Ray Latif: It was 73 that was like the high. It's supposed to be 80 in two days from now. I don't speak that language, but it sounds warm to me. Is your T-shirt, was that Bachman and Turner Overdrive? Oh, Bad Turn.
[00:21:40] Naturally San: Bad Tuna Radio.
[00:21:41] Ray Latif: Check them out.
[00:21:42] Naturally San: What is that? I went to a gig on Friday night. It's the lovely Brooklyn lad doing some banging tunes at Higher Ground in Burlington, Vermont. Well done. Shout out to Bad Tuna. Hopefully, he's listening to this.
[00:21:53] Ray Latif: Well, Bad Tuna Radio, Taste Radio, it's all part of the same family.
[00:21:57] Naturally San: It's all radio.
[00:21:58] Ray Latif: Yeah. Plink, we met you and your wonderful co-founder, Max Lucey, who's actually standing behind you, making sure you don't say anything weird. You guys were amazing on stage at BevNET Live. Was it three years ago now? Was it 2022? Yes. 2022. Yeah. In New York, you guys won our New Beverage Showdown. And Plink, I feel like, really resonated with a lot of folks. And I think you guys as founders resonated with a lot of folks. I always think about a brand name. I always think about coming out of the gate strong. And even though you've iterated, at the core, you're still who you are as founders. And I think the brand is at its core still the same as it was two and a half years ago. Am I wrong in thinking that? No, totally.
[00:22:40] Naturally San: I think, in essence, when we launched, we definitely launched with a bang. Both Max and I, we love brand, so we spent a load of time pre-launch just making sure that we were joyful and bright and fun and characterful, and that really landed well at BevNET. I think we had a really big powerful sustainability message at the offset, which was stop drinking canned and bottled beverages and drink tablets instead. And I think that was like fun and exciting for BevNET and it won the show. It was sort of very innovative, but I think it was maybe a little bit too innovative for the consumers to begin with. I think perhaps, yeah. We weren't asking people to move their hand to the left on the shelf. We were getting people to turn around and walk out and go to somewhere entirely different. And I think what we've done over the last couple of years is we've really honed in on being much more product positive, and what's incredible about Blink, and I think what we realized at the time is, we actually didn't realize this at the time of winning BevNET, but we had actually landed on the missing piece in hydration, which is no one's treating this category like they're drinks, like they'New Beverage, everyone's talking about them like supplements, and it's about the medicinal qualities, but really to consume a product, for daily hydration, it's got to taste great. It's got to have that beginning, middle, and end that a drink has. It's got to make you feel good and be joyful, and I think, so we did reformulate. We reformulated to give ourselves the optimal blend of electrolytes for daily hydration, so not salt levels that make you feel like you're going to run a marathon, and not sugar levels that make you feel like you need to run a marathon from a calorific point of view. Just a banging formula and great taste. We're not promising the world. We're just delicious electrolytes. So we don't have a sort of, we're going to cure your bowel cancer with this adaptogenic mushroom. It's just a great drink that you can enjoy daily. So it's just, for us, it's just taken a little bit of time to build. But like you said, at the core, it's Blinkist, or who Max and I are, and the brand is really strong. And it's just been a really great, few months for us just slowly building and people are seeing our ads coming out and people seeing us getting in more stores and we're about to 10x our store footprint this year. So it's a really exciting time.
[00:24:57] Ray Latif: Yeah, I totally hear what you're saying. And I think the word refreshment has been forgotten by a lot New Beverage brands, which is like the most ironic thing you could possibly hear. But it sounds like it's almost part of the way that you guys have evolved too. Totally.
[00:25:11] Naturally San: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think refreshment on demand was actually on the side of the pack at BevNET and I think it's just the joy of the category is what excited us most. We're obviously not at peak performance. There's still a lot more stuff that can come, but I do think that there is a lovely backlash to just, can we just calm down the functionality and just enjoy a delicious drink.
[00:25:35] Ray Latif: Now, what's weird is what I'm going to ask next, because we spoke at Expo West in 2024. It was a stand up conversation. We're sitting down now. I suggested our next one be floating, high gravity and all that. But I'm down or up for that. Oh, yes. Well done. But we talked about magnesium. Correct. Yeah. Is magnesium still an important consideration for you guys?
[00:25:56] Naturally San: I think magnesium. is a bit of a game changer for us. We didn't have magnesium in the first formulation, and that was because we were focusing on speed of dissolve, the size of the bubbles, the fizziness, because it was really about the can of LaCroix without the can. That was sort of the original concept. But when we reformulated for this optimal blend, we saw that we were missing an essential electrolyte that can just help with muscle soreness, with reduced brain fog, with all of these things. And it's having a real moment, and we added it in. And it's working for us.
[00:26:31] Ray Latif: That's good. I mean, when we were in the UK and I mean, the Taste Radio team and I in London last year, I was actually pretty amazed at how expressive beverages were about magnesium. It's weird because I think here it's part of some beverages, it's part of New Beverage brands, but I almost feel like there it was top-line information, it was top-line benefit.
[00:26:55] Naturally San: Yeah, well, interesting you should say that because I thought one of the talks that I really enjoyed at BevNET Santa Monica Watrous Ben Whitty recesses talk. In essence, magnesium is almost the basis of a whole new category and the category is rest. I think it is because it doesn't have any of the issues that things like CBD might have with a regulatory perspective, but it does have proven efficacy. I think it is a really exciting ingredient that You know, you've seen PepsiCo have brought out magnesium, I'm pretty sure, or looking at it, was it Driftwell or something?
[00:27:27] Ray Latif: Yes.
[00:27:27] Naturally San: Yes. And I just think that there is so much space with it as an ingredient. And yeah, it's an exciting one.
[00:27:34] Ray Latif: But I guess that's the question, right? Do you lead with function? Do you lead with ingredients? Again, with recess, you're trying to lean with... Not necessarily function, but sort of lifestyle and that you need to kind of chill.
[00:27:45] John Craven: Yeah.
[00:27:45] Ray Latif: And there was a whole relaxation beverage category a few years back. And I feel like what Recess is doing and to a certain extent with other magnesium brands are doing is sort of a chill 2.0, relaxation 2.0. But is it as much talking about what consumers want or is it giving them the feeling that they want.
[00:28:03] Naturally San: Does that make sense? Totally. Well, for us, it was just about putting it in to make sure that we have the right ingredients for the desired effect, which is just feeling great. And feeling great is a byproduct of being well hydrated. And for us, we're not talking We have started in ads because it's helpful to be like, do you have cramps? Do you have brain fog? Like we're telling you how that we can help, help you improve your lives. But at the same time, that's not what we're leading with. You know, this is, again, it is, it's easier to be happy when you're well hydrated, right? And I think that's another brand line, hydrate happily.
[00:28:42] Ray Latif: I haven't heard of it.
[00:28:42] Naturally San: I would have heard it.
[00:28:43] Ray Latif: So I think you should trademark that. No, no, it's not. That's not ours. OK, fair enough. Well, you know, the other part of this is, yes, now you've got your positioning as fine tuned as you want it to be. I think getting into your stores, very important, getting off shelf, very, very important as well. Yeah. So when you're thinking about merchandising opportunities and talking to these executives at retail stores and where this product is going to sell best on shelf, have you figured out, I mean, is there a is there a matrix that kind of works for where Plank sells best and is best understood in stores?
[00:29:20] Naturally San: Yes, so in essence, you've summed up the challenge that everyone has, which is sips to lips. If you back the taste of your product, you've just got to get it into as many hands as possible. We're in a really fortunate position that hydration as a category is growing and booming, and in the just-add-water space, where you don't have this sort of waste of cans and bottles, you can put these by the cash registers, so they can be an impulse purchase. So we've got, we call them a bodega box, they're just a really beautiful display, single serves, can be put by the cash registers. And the wellness buyers are absolutely loving that because they're getting more share of their store section put in that section of the store. And you'll see, I'd have to sort of, it would be a myth to not say that. I think it was driven actually by Unilever doing a great job with their purchase of Liquid IV and you've seen how they've merchandised it. in every airport, you know, travel sections by the cash register. And it's shown, it's proven that hydration can sit next to the lip balms and the chewing gum.
[00:30:16] Ray Latif: How about that? You would never think that. But if you have an innovative product in a package that makes sense to consumers where there is a reference point, And it's fun, as you pointed out. It can go a long way. And I think Plink can go a long way. We've always been big fans of your brand. And we really think that you, and I say we, I mean BevNET, we really And anytime folks ask us about brands that we respect and think represent true innovation and the reason for being that makes sense, Plink is one of the first names that always comes up. That's why we love you, right?
[00:30:54] Naturally San: That's why we love you. No, I mean, and that's... The thing that, just to sort of put full circle on the conversation is that, and that is that Max and I are at our heart, we're like idiosyncratic, we're kind of crazy, anti-corporate, anti-capitalist, we're like really, everyone's like, you've got to sell the product benefits, you've got to push these things, and we're just trying to have fun, and be weird, and bring ourselves to the brand and the product. It's going to take time because it does, but we love what we do. Didn't Max say you're not supposed to be weird though? He did ask me to not be weird, but I was sitting there for just slightly too long.
[00:31:29] Ray Latif: The weirdness came out. Luke, thank you so much for taking the time. It's so good to talk with you every time we sit down and let's do this again soon. Yes. Magic carpet next time. Exactly. Thank you, Ray. 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.
[00:32:34] Mike Schneider: you
