[00:00:10] Ray Latif: Hello and thanks for tuning in to Taste Radio, the number one podcast for the food and beverage industry. I'm Ray Latif, the editor and producer of Taste Radio, and with my co-host for this episode, John Craven, Jacqui Brugliera, and Mike Schneider. In this episode, we feature an interview with Gregory Lowe II and Jason Miller, the founder and CEO and President of Sales, respectively, of Challenger Coconut Water brand, 100 Coconuts. 100. I'm feeling 100 today. Gregory Lowe II? Yeah. Most people use Junior. That's, that's power right there.
[00:00:45] John Craven: The second. It's like royalty.
[00:00:47] Jacqui Brugliera: I like that. It does sound like royalty. Yeah. Hey, I'll just say they're pineapple coconut water. It's pretty tasty. I was a little skeptical, but it was good.
[00:00:57] Ray Latif: The mango is good too. Pineapple and coconut water, that's a classic combination. It's a pina colada right there. Sort of. Sort of.
[00:01:03] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah. Minus the booze.
[00:01:06] Ray Latif: Yeah. Maybe we'll have some coconut water on hand at our upcoming meetups. People, audience members, friends, please Mark Your calendars. The WCB, the West Coast Branch in San Diego, will be having a meetup. On September 28th, here at BevNET headquarters in Newton, Massachusetts, we'll be having a meetup on October 4th. We're asking for folks to register for the meetups. Jackie, as we know, it's pretty easy to do so. How do you do it?
[00:01:33] John Craven: Yeah, it's super easy. So you just go to BevNET.com slash events and all the information will be there. You can click through to the different meetups, the one in San Diego, the one in Boston, learn a little bit more and register for free. So these are free meetups. We want everyone from the industry to come into our office, chat with us, share your samples and get connected.
[00:01:57] Ray Latif: Absolutely. We encourage folks to attend. Please bring product samples to share. We would love to try them. Obviously, we would love to share those with other members of the community. I feel like that's the best way. I mean, it's like, it's a classic way to introduce yourself to other people. It's like breaking bread, but breaking product samples, so to speak.
[00:02:17] John Craven: I see where this is going. What's that I see where this is going breaking bread breaking Exactly, where is this?
[00:02:25] Ray Latif: Where's it go Grilled Cheese? I hope Grilled Cheese. Oh Grilled Cheese That was not an intended segue, but I like that well done Jackie thinks you highly of me John Craven may be bringing some samples of Grilled Cheese because apparently now he's a Grilled Cheese master And you brought some with us what you brought some with you today for this episode He did buy a special toaster oven like he replaced a perfectly good toaster oven with a new toaster oven
[00:02:53] Jacqui Brugliera: No, no, no, that's totally just for the Grilled Cheese.
[00:02:56] John Craven: Yeah. Oh, no, no.
[00:02:57] Jacqui Brugliera: Our office toaster oven was dying. It died. It was making noise. It would just shut off. I set up the fire alarm with it. It was the perfect opportunity. And yes, that's true. Mike almost burned down the office.
[00:03:06] Ray Latif: Wait, what did you do with that toaster oven? Did you toss it?
[00:03:09] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, this was a while ago. Oh, this isn't a new toaster oven. We got this.
[00:03:13] Ray Latif: I was just kidding.
[00:03:13] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, he's just an empty. Anyway. Yeah. So we have some frozen Grilled Cheese from A Friendly Bread. That's the name of the brand, A Friendly Bread. I think it's called Friendly Bread the logo. I mean, there's a little a little packaging to be done here But you can tell what the hero is Grilled Cheese.
[00:03:32] Ray Latif: Well, yeah If you're not watching the video of this a Friendly Bread is a tiny logo in the upper left-hand corner But smack right dab right on the front Wow Huge image of Grilled Cheese and then on the front. It's a sourdough Grilled Cheese. This one is Holla, I'm pronouncing that correctly with Swiss and mozzarella.
[00:03:52] Jacqui Brugliera: All right, and John Kramer has a whole bunch in front of it These are like you just throw them in the toaster air fryer for a couple minutes. We got some cinnamon raisin with brie jalapeno and some classic ones so
[00:04:05] Ray Latif: Occasionally Occasionally on a rare occasion. I may have a Grilled Cheese sandwich, but I'm just not and people know this about me. You uploaded some to Jackie. Yeah. Wow Jackie That was dark.
[00:04:25] John Craven: Don't start checking in instantly. It just appeared in my hands.
[00:04:28] SPEAKER_??: Oh
[00:04:28] Ray Latif: No one asked for hand sanitizer, but I have some bad hand sanitizer right here. It's too late for that.
[00:04:32] John Craven: I'm eating the cinnamon raisin with brie one since it'For Breakfast time. So I went for something a little bit sweeter. Raisins. I had the jalapeno one yesterday. That was really, really tasty.
[00:04:44] Jacqui Brugliera: But they're pretty tasty.
[00:04:46] John Craven: Yeah, it's cool. It's like a company that started as just a sourdough bread brand. And then they were like, what goes better with bread than cheese? And then created some frozen Grilled Cheese. But it's cool because it's, you know, not your traditional Grilled Cheese. They're pairing their breads with the appropriate cheese. So it's really tasty.
[00:05:06] Ray Latif: What goes better with bread? I would go with butter.
[00:05:09] John Craven: For people that don't like cheese, like Ray, yes, butter.
[00:05:13] Ray Latif: I'm going with a classic, you know, I keep mentioning classic combos. Wait, whoa, whoa. Come on. We've talked about this a thousand times. I'm not a huge cheese eater. I will have some cheese here and there. I'm just not a huge cheese eater.
[00:05:23] Jacqui Brugliera: I'm not the only one. But you love wine.
[00:05:25] Ray Latif: What goes better? Beer is a better combo with cheese than wine is actually. It's a true story. Yes. No. Yes, because the carbonation, yes, the carbonation makes it easier to.
[00:05:35] Jacqui Brugliera: He's telling himself that because he doesn't like cheese.
[00:05:38] John Craven: So how about sparkling wine, carbonated wine?
[00:05:41] Ray Latif: Possibly. I've never, yeah, but maybe sparkling wine is a better pairing with cheese than non-sparkling wine.
[00:05:49] Jacqui Brugliera: Maybe the best part of this is the crunch. I mean, the flavor is really good too. I love the crunch when you air fry it. There you go. Anyway, stuff is good. Hope they send us some more. Pretty please. Bottom line here is the stuff is good. Just don't send any to Ray. Yeah. Send them all to us.
[00:06:04] Ray Latif: Yes. Send them to the attention of John Craven and Jacqui Brugliera. There you go. Perfect. I won't say no. Well, a friendly toast. I'm sorry, a Friendly Bread. Perhaps we'll see them at one of our meetups. If you are planning on going, please also let our community know. Let the BevNET community know via BevNET's Slack channel. It's a great place to let people know what you're up to, what your brand is doing. Recent wins, new distribution, new retail. If you have any questions to the community about a specific topic. I know we recently had a few folks ask about co-packers in a particular region of the country. It's just a great way to find like-minded industry professionals chatting about how to build their businesses at scale and the opportunities and challenges that are facing brands today.
[00:06:51] Jacqui Brugliera: Most of Traverse is in there. The team is in there. We're going to curate the answers to those questions for you too. We're going to try to find somebody. If you've got a hard question, come to our Slack channel, Mark Your question. We'll help you find an answer.
[00:07:03] Ray Latif: Absolutely. All right, before we go any further, I want to thank our presenting sponsor for this episode. That's Tetra Pak, the pioneering packaging solutions company that provides safe, innovative, and environmentally sound products that each day meet the needs of hundreds of millions of people around the world. Learn more at tetrapak.com. Do you think Tetra Pak could pack a Grilled Cheese sandwich? I'd like to see him try. Or some tomato soup to go with it. That does seem like the perfect package for soup, doesn't it? A Tetra Pak?
[00:07:40] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah. I mean, sometimes I buy it that way, sure.
[00:07:44] Ray Latif: If you want to drink your soup, for sure. No, but you always see broth in Tetra Paks. Like I guess nowadays broth always used to be canned, but now you see broth and Tetra packs all the time, but I feel like soup. I love that they sell soup in it.
[00:07:58] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, yeah, Pacific natural foods has a couple varieties that you can find it open and any natural food store as much as you need.
[00:08:05] John Craven: Yeah, you want to Trader Joe's? Most of their soups are in Trader Joe's too.
[00:08:09] Ray Latif: Maybe I'm missing out. Now I haven't seen any pasta sauces or maybe I'm just blanking on this. I haven't seen any pasta sauces in Tetra Paks. Have you guys seen any of that? Really? Yeah. Which ones?
[00:08:22] Jacqui Brugliera: Well, I think one of the brands that makes like canned tomatoes, you know, they all make like canned tomato sauce too. Like the Pastine one maybe I think has a Tetra Pak and then there's blanking on the brand right now, but they make like San Marzano tomatoes. It's like a white can with sort of images of tomatoes. It's a newer brand, but they also sell their products in Tetra Paks and have a tomato sauce variety in there.
[00:08:51] Ray Latif: See? The more you know. But I haven't seen Rayo's pasta sauce in Tetra Paks yet. It's possible that we will. I mentioned Rao's because the brand has been in the news all week. Rao's is a brand of pasta, sauces, and soups. They also have their flagship or very famous restaurant in New York City. It was announced this week that Campbell's intends to acquire Rao's owner. Rao's owner is Sovos Brands. Sovos Brands also owns Noosa Yogurt Michael Angelo's, which is an Italian frozen fruit brand. And the price tag for that acquisition is 2.7 Billion dollars.
[00:09:28] John Craven: Billion.
[00:09:29] Ray Latif: Billion with a B. I said million.
[00:09:32] Jacqui Brugliera: We got it, Jackie.
[00:09:34] Ray Latif: I think that deserves a G's guy. Anytime there's a big acquisition, G's guy.
[00:09:40] Jacqui Brugliera: G's guy. We need Stern.
[00:09:41] Ray Latif: $2.7 billion for Rao's, Noosa Yogurt, Michael Angelo's. But in the news, it was pretty much talked about that Rao's was the centerpiece of this acquisition.
[00:09:53] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, that's definitely the brand that people really know for sure. But hey, I mean, anytime there's a acquisition that has the word billion in it, it's good for the ecosystem there. I bet 1.8 billion of that was the Arrabbiata. That stuff is next level.
[00:10:09] Ray Latif: Well, I mean, I guess that's my question here is, is Raios still so special that it's worth at least part of that price tag? I used to buy Rios a ton.
[00:10:23] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, but I mean, it depends what you're talking about, right? Is it the best jarred sauce out there? No. Is it probably the top dog in premium? Yeah, I think so. I mean, that stuff, you can get it at Costco, like it's out there.
[00:10:39] Mike Schneider: Yeah.
[00:10:39] Jacqui Brugliera: I mean, it's in a lot of places and it's really well positioned and it's a good quality product. So I can understand why Campbell's would want to have that in their portfolio. And also it's an established product. It's well distributed. People know it. They know it's premium. It's like, maybe there are better ones out there, but are they out there? Not yet. So you're buying more than just the brand. Yeah. And there's other stuff in there, uh, Rayo's portfolio too, like in terms of products. So I'm sure there's opportunity for expansion, right?
[00:11:14] Ray Latif: Yeah. I mean, they have soups and pasta as well. I will say though, that for me, when Rayo's first came out with their pasta sauces, their jarred pasta sauces, I was a huge fan. But then it just seemed like the brand kind of lost its luster every time I would go into a grocery store because every time it would be on sale. I mean, their promotional strategy was, I don't even know what it was because every single time I went to the store, it was like two, three, $4 off.
[00:11:43] John Craven: Are you shopping sales though? Because I feel like people that are loyal to the brand or like the product, they'd be excited about that and want to buy even more.
[00:11:52] Jacqui Brugliera: Well, it definitely was to Ray's point, like never on sale in the early days, but I don't know. I, you know, I wonder if like the product itself has changed, which is another thing. we often see with like, you know, emerging brands, it's like, as they scale up, they're making tweaks, you know, which could impact the sort of quality of the product with like the hardcore fans, but they're trading that in to have a broader audience, which is just reality in CPG a lot of times. There's also other, other factors that we might not know about. So a lot of times when you build a new brand, the builders, the people who formulated the products initially, they're builders, you know, they want to move on to the next thing and maybe they have, we don't know. So in that 2.7 billion, you know, did they acquire the original formulating team and things like that? I mean, those are, those are huge things that go into the acquisition of a company. And look, I really want to reiterate, I mean, I think there is, whenever a deal like this happens, a trickle down that, you know, anyone who's out there listening with like a really small brand and wondering, like, why should I care about this or whatever, it's just a big company, like rich people getting richer sort of thing. I mean, anytime big CPG opens their checkbook in a major way, that is an important signal to other people in the investment side of things that this is a good place to put their money. And I think that is something it probably won't like, you know, tomorrow all of a sudden make raising money easier, but it will have a positive impact. So, you know, I'm psyched to see something like that. We had a little drought of mega CPG deals. So this is, this is definitely good news.
[00:13:40] Ray Latif: Mega is a good word to describe this. Didn't Simon & Schuster get acquired recently?
[00:13:45] Campbell Soup: Well, that's a little different.
[00:13:47] Ray Latif: No, I'm not saying that's a CPG brand, but it got, I think the acquisition price was under $2 billion. It was like $1.6 or something like that.
[00:13:54] Jacqui Brugliera: I think it had a billion though.
[00:13:55] Ray Latif: It did have a billion. But it was kind of surprising that Simon & Schuster is this legacy book company or book publisher sold for about a billion dollars less than Sobo'Sovos Brands. Sure. Interesting stuff. Who owns Entenmann's? I think it's Bimbo. Bimbo Bakery? Possibly. Yes. I'll trust you. I wonder what the acquisition price was for that. We'll have to look that up. But in the meantime, I'm going to bust out some bakery products that don't include cheese. So last month, Baked by Melissa and Entenmann's collaborated and launched a new tray. I want to call this a tray of cupcakes. And these are, is it 25 pack of cupcakes, limited edition and only sold in store and online. Basically this collaboration is to celebrate the 125th year or 125th birthday of Entenmann's. And my mouth is watering because I'm looking at all these cupcakes. There are three varieties in this 25 pack. There's a Devil's Food Crumb, there's a Chocolate Chip Cookie, and there's a Party Cake. And each of these little cupcakes is made with a particular Entenmann's or inspired by a particular Entenmann's product. So the Devil's Food Crumb inspired by Entenmann's Devil Food Crumb Donut. The chocolate chip cookie, Entenmann's original chocolate chip cookies, and the party cake. Guess what? Inspired by Entenmann's party cake. Alright, so enough talking, let's bust these open.
[00:15:25] Jacqui Brugliera: I thought when you put these in front of me initially that this was a toy box. I thought that was Melissa and Doug. Because my kids played with the Melissa and Doug toy food, so I thought these were toy cupcakes Sorry Baked by Melissa. I thought you were Melissa and Doug, but I'm sure that's That's not a brand mistaken for right now these look amazing So this is also just for people who are listening to this Ray here who's like you people are crazy eating a bite of a Grilled Cheese is now gonna take down 25 little cupcakes and this one This is the one I wanted to go for. More of a sweet tooth. This cupcake legit has an Entenmann's cookie, like, crushed up on top of it. That looks awesome. Oh, it does? I didn't even notice that. Wow. Yeah. I'm going to go for it.
[00:16:13] Ray Latif: Okay. I'm going to go for the devil's food crumb here.
[00:16:16] John Craven: Because I know, like, I mean, I think of Entenmann's and I don't think of, like, top quality, so.
[00:16:21] Jacqui Brugliera: Hold on. Yeah, we're going to try them all, Mike. We'll let you know how they are. Yeah, please do.
[00:16:26] John Craven: Oh. All right. How is it?
[00:16:29] Ray Latif: The party cake is legit. Yeah, that's why I got the coffee everyone's making why are you drinking wash it down yeah
[00:16:41] Jacqui Brugliera: Mm-hmm, really really good. I prefer Grilled Cheese to cupcakes normally, but I'm glad these are like Bite-sized cupcakes.
[00:16:48] Ray Latif: Well, that's what my Melissa is famous for right?
[00:16:50] John Craven: They're a New York-based company and they're best known for their bite-sized cupcakes and treats pretty legit I think it's a smart collab for intimates, you know bringing a more premium experience to their products and reinventing them a little bit
[00:17:04] Ray Latif: This is a collab that makes a lot of sense as opposed to a collab that's just, you know, for eyeballs and shock value, right?
[00:17:11] John Craven: Publicity.
[00:17:12] Ray Latif: Like, I mean, let's be honest. We talked last week about the Skittles and French's collab, and that was very much a shock value kind of play.
[00:17:20] Jacqui Brugliera: Like no one wants to eat that.
[00:17:22] Ray Latif: Right. These are good. Right. The Velveeta cheese or Velveeta martini, Velveeta chocolate, all that stuff. I mean, it just feels more for shock value where they feel like this is an authentic collab and it elevates Entemann's. in a way that's going to remind people, oh, yeah, I love that cupcake they made with Baked by Melissa. Now I'm going to go get that party cake at my local stop and shop. These are legit.
[00:17:43] John Craven: Yeah. And it's something that, you know, they could have for a while if they wanted to. It's not something that they'd have to get rid of because it's a great product for each.
[00:17:51] Jacqui Brugliera: Well, if they want to have it for a while, Jackie, I think they should consider my Melissa and Doug collaboration because then they'll last forever.
[00:17:57] Ray Latif: Which is so good. I'll admit I requested these or I asked for a sample of these and Baked by Melissa and Entenmann's was very kind and sending me some Did Giada de Laurentiis ever send you the jazzy pasta John Craven? Yeah, I'm gonna go with yes You were so agitated In history the actual packages are just super-sized I
[00:18:26] Jacqui Brugliera: No seriously like I feel like I'm not like one of those Guinness Book of World Record like certifying, but I want to certify this the world's tallest Box of pasta. I measured it.
[00:18:38] Ray Latif: It's 23 inches tall Where would you see this it makes sense that it's a d2c brand at this point because where?
[00:18:44] Jacqui Brugliera: What retail store is gonna care where they get merchandise that looks like something you'd find at B&H It looks like a tripod box, and what like pot is that gonna fit in oh? He's gotta slowly drop it in. It's a Bucatini. You gotta hold it and let it in. And they have this jewelry. How would you pronounce this one?
[00:19:03] Ray Latif: Which one? Paccheri. Paccheri? Paccheri. Yes. Yes.
[00:19:13] Jacqui Brugliera: P-A-C-C-H-E-R-I. Paccheri. Paccheri. There you go. Yeah, I mean, this looks like, I've not tried this yet. Said it's made in the pristine mountains of Abruzzo. with organic ingredients. Hey, I'm not Italian. What do you want?
[00:19:30] John Craven: What do you want from me? What do you want?
[00:19:32] Jacqui Brugliera: What do you want? Tea glass, buddy. How about that?
[00:19:34] John Craven: Oh. So yeah, these look like really top notch pastas. I feel like this is something that's like a conversation starter. You're having a dinner party and you want to feel like it's an elevated pasta dinner. You're just not, you know, mailing it in and you have this on the counter and it's like, whoa, what's that?
[00:19:53] Jacqui Brugliera: I mean literally, literally elevated. It's so damn tall. There's an elevator in that box.
[00:19:58] Ray Latif: I appreciate this, this pacheri, but I'm gonna have to dedicate an entire room in my house just to hold this thing.
[00:20:06] Jacqui Brugliera: You might want to make that tonight.
[00:20:07] Ray Latif: I don't know if I can. Don't have a pocket enough.
[00:20:10] Jacqui Brugliera: I mean, this is like definitely some standout packaging for the Boss Style. It's pretty cool. Not just this legit tall box, but the design of it's pretty nice.
[00:20:19] Ray Latif: Oh, it's organic too.
[00:20:20] Jacqui Brugliera: I think we're going to put BevNET Live in these boxes.
[00:20:24] John Craven: I don't know if we could fit it.
[00:20:25] Jacqui Brugliera: Talk about it endlessly Well anyway my apologies to the jihazi Team for complaining that I wasn't getting samples.
[00:20:35] John Craven: Thank you.
[00:20:36] Ray Latif: They they actually sent me an email about that And they called you ungrateful and said that Massive box that only had three boxes of pasta in it
[00:20:48] Jacqui Brugliera: So now you're still unhappy The full variety of pasta that they offer is it No, there's one more. There's the pepper. No they sent enough pasta to feed an army. That's what they did It just so happens that it only came in three boxes, and there's a tank in one of them A lot in these boxes, okay, well okay boxes Yesterday, I mean I was sitting at my desk. You know doing stuff and Amanda who is on our design team and social media team. She just starts walking up the stairs with this big box I didn't think anything of it. I was like big boxes coming all the time Was it was he walks up the stairs with another big box? And then she walks up the stairs with another big box, and they all say true fruit on them We got these true food samples yesterday. They sent us like a bounty of
[00:21:41] Ray Latif: These chocolate-covered fruits true for is spelled TRU. There's an umlaut over the U And then FRU also with an umlaut. What is this? What's it? What's it?
[00:21:52] Jacqui Brugliera: These are it's a brand of chocolate-covered fruit. I've got in my hand right now the dark chocolate-covered raspberries and they're like in a two-pack and I also have these chocolate and peanut butter covered bananas. Want to shut up? Yeah. Oh, nice. I want to try those too.
[00:22:13] Ray Latif: I thought that was ice cream.
[00:22:14] Jacqui Brugliera: I thought it was too, but... So it's like little bites? Yes.
[00:22:17] John Craven: They're little bites.
[00:22:18] Jacqui Brugliera: Like banana bites? Look, check it out, Jackie.
[00:22:21] Ray Latif: Ooh.
[00:22:22] Jacqui Brugliera: Here, let me throw one to you. I'm just kidding. Yeah. Pretty good. Pretty tasty.
[00:22:26] Ray Latif: Nice. I like the... The raspberry is really, really good. You got that good combination of
[00:22:32] John Craven: Well, it's real fruit. It's fruit. It's frozen. It's like really simple, simple, tasty ingredients. So we're just talking about dessert. I still have to eat breakfast over here. So I have nature's find, which is a brand that focuses on fungi based proteins, and this is their meatless breakfast patties. And this product just hit whole foods a couple months ago and it's rolling out all across the U S. And I just found it in my local Whole Foods. They also have been collabing with Eric Rupert, which is very well known chef, and they came out with a limited release line of dressings. And I think he's also helps with some of the formulation and things like that promotion of the product. It's interesting, like they really focus on using their fi nutritional fungi protein. So it's an ingredient that they can put into a bunch of different products. They also have like a dairy free cream cheese too. So it's cool to see this platform brand grow and new products pop up.
[00:23:38] Jacqui Brugliera: Nature's find spelled F Y N D. Like when I first saw it, I was like, what? How did you know just to say find?
[00:23:45] John Craven: I just went for it What else could it be like fiend I don't know nature's fiend nature's fiend.
[00:23:53] Ray Latif: It sounds like a horror movie. Yeah, that would be weird So here's a brand that all of us are fans of at least I'm making that assumption because I've seen everyone enjoy One of these this is tip-top cocktails latest variety this is their jungle bird and product. Jungle Bird is a, and I should just note that Tip Top is a maker of premium cocktails packaged in these small hundred milliliter cans. They have a lot of varieties, classic Negroni, Manhattan, Old Fashioned. So Jungle Bird is their latest iteration or their latest variety. It is made with rum, lime, pineapple, and red bitters. It's pretty fantastic stuff. Unfortunately, it's a limited time product, but it's available now in 40 states.
[00:24:42] Jacqui Brugliera: Well, it's not the first time they've done it.
[00:24:44] Ray Latif: It is not, no.
[00:24:45] Jacqui Brugliera: It is quite delightful liquid, so.
[00:24:48] Ray Latif: Yes, it is. It's a perfect summer cocktail. I mean, you put this over ice, you know, in the evening, great way to wrap up the day. But, you know, Tip Top is just, I mean, they nail everything they do. Quality love the name jungle bird sounds like a party It is a good cocktail highly recommend that could be that could be a nickname for someone on the team what jungle bird yeah I don't even know what that means.
[00:25:17] John Craven: Yeah, we're at the noodle on that and think of for the next episode who would be the jungle bird I
[00:25:22] Ray Latif: Well, like post that, you know, post Bevan at live, everyone always gets together. Yeah. At a certain point in the night, it's like, Oh, here comes jungle bird, you know, coming in hot. I wonder if someone on our team could be nicknamed lucky. Okay. Well, there's a new brand out there. It's an energy drink brand called Lucky F asterisk CK. I'm not going to say the word. It's just a word, Ray. No. People say it all the time.
[00:25:54] John Craven: People are going to have to say it when they say the brand name, right?
[00:25:56] Ray Latif: Oh, I just... Lucky Fook? You guys say Lucky Fook? I guess. I mean, it's... Lucky Fook! Yeah. So the founder of this brand is Richard Laver, who is the founder of Kate Farms. Kate Farms is the brand of nutritional beverages, nutritional drinks.
[00:26:12] Jacqui Brugliera: And talk about two brands that are like at the opposite ends of the spectrum there exactly lucky
[00:26:19] Ray Latif: Almost said it, is an energy brand. We'll just censor you, Ray. This variety of Lucky Blank that I'm holding in my hand is their sparkling bodacious berry. It's made with natural and artificial flavors, zero sugar, and it claims to have zero aftertaste. Only five super ingredients, or not only five, but it says five super ingredients on the front. Those ingredients do include Panax ginseng root extract. All right, let's give this a whirl.
[00:26:43] Jacqui Brugliera: You're going for it.
[00:26:44] Ray Latif: I mean, why not?
[00:26:46] Jacqui Brugliera: Well, because it's called Lucky Fuck. I might not want to go for it.
[00:26:51] John Craven: Yeah, I mean, I think they're going for the shock factor a little bit to get people.
[00:26:55] Ray Latif: Yeah, a little bit. It's a huge can too. It's 19.2 ounces.
[00:26:59] Jacqui Brugliera: It's made by Mr. Lucky. Look on the back. Oh, geez.
[00:27:02] Ray Latif: Well, so Richard, who's the founder of the company, actually survived a plane crash at age 12. Wow. Okay.
[00:27:08] Jacqui Brugliera: So I think he... Mr. Lucky indeed.
[00:27:10] Ray Latif: Yes, I think that's... He probably was nicknamed this, or at least he feels this way for the rest of his life. Yeah. And I think that plane crash was like, it killed, I don't know, like over 150 people, but somehow he survived. So yeah. On that note. Speaking of founders named Richard.
[00:27:33] Jacqui Brugliera: I don't know if you've seen it yet, but Richard's Rainwater has a really nice rebrand.
[00:27:37] Ray Latif: Richard's Rainwater. Yeah, they're typically, or I have come to know them as a glass bottle brand, but you're holding up a can there.
[00:27:43] Jacqui Brugliera: I'm holding up a can. It's a 16 ounce can and it has a new striking R on it. And an R that they're so proud of that they commissioned an artist. Made a bunch of made a bunch of art out of the new Richards rainwater logo And they sent us one to put in the office.
[00:28:05] Ray Latif: I thought that was really nice very nice the R is this rainbow ish sort of floral looking are almost like a paint stroke and Yes, that's a better way of describing it. It's like a paint stroke.
[00:28:20] Jacqui Brugliera: It has a, I mean, you know, it's really, everybody wants to make an iconic logo and you tell a designer, make me something iconic. You can't like, you can't just make something iconic out of nothing. And this feels like it, This feels like it could go there. It's, it's really, really well done. You know, the thing that you ask yourself is, is this going to be easy to print, put on a shirt, put on a hat because there's a lot of colors. And the answer is yes, because they sent us hats with the logo on it.
[00:28:51] Ray Latif: That is a good looking hat. It's a trucker hat. Yeah. And there's one left upstairs. I was going to grab that one. Okay. That'd be good for you.
[00:29:01] Jacqui Brugliera: It's R for Ray and Richard's rainwater.
[00:29:03] John Craven: So, yeah, I don't know if I've ever seen you in a trucker hat, Ray, usually just the baseball caps.
[00:29:08] Ray Latif: Yeah, the front of the trucker cap makes it kind of difficult because like you don't get that good fit on the back. So basically it's just like, I don't know. This one's special.
[00:29:16] Jacqui Brugliera: They did a good job with this hat.
[00:29:17] Ray Latif: But it does say Richards on the front. It doesn't have an R logo. It just says Richards. So people wonder why I'm wearing the hat.
[00:29:23] Jacqui Brugliera: True. What's your name? I'm going to call you Richard.
[00:29:26] Ray Latif: This is my new name. Richard Latif. There you go. It doesn't have the same kind of flow off the tongue as Ray Latif.
[00:29:35] Jacqui Brugliera: Sounds like a guy that likes wine and cheese pairings though. Good God, man. I also have my break glass in case of emergency. Honey Mama. That's not what it is. They sent us some, uh, they sent us their new flavor, lemon blueberry. It's with the, you know, I don't know, a year or so back, they came out with the blonde truffle bars and they've been making different flavors. Lemon blueberries, the latest, next level. So good.
[00:30:01] Ray Latif: Limited-edition, but that do you have one extra in case you do need to break the glass and It's not gonna be around. I'm awesome.
[00:30:09] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah here have some no.
[00:30:10] Ray Latif: I'm good.
[00:30:11] Jacqui Brugliera: Thank you very much I have to I ate too many cup yeah the cupcakes all right well I'm definitely going for it. You know it's Honey Mama's, and I can't resist yeah ever I'm just gonna be in the corner Yeah, when Mike goes into like anaphylactic shock some people you know they need like an EpiPen or whatever You just shove Honey Mama.
[00:30:30] Ray Latif: It's happened. It's happened before it's passed on the show floor at Expo West and we're just Just called Christie one person's holding open his chin or holding his chin open and then the other person's just like putting a little crumbs of Honey Mama Inject a cortado into his arm Alright, it's time to get to our featured interview for this episode. That's with Gregory Lowe, who is the founder and CEO of fast-growing coconut water brand 100 Coconuts, and Jason Miller, who is the company's President of Sales. Founded in 2019, 100 Coconuts markets four varieties, each made with Vietnamese-sourced, not-from-concentrate coconut water and packaged in 11-ounce aluminum cans. The brand's flagship Pure variety is sold at select Publix, H-E-B, Walmart, Vitamin Shoppe and Target locations. In the following interview, I spoke with Greg and Jason about the origins of 100 Coconuts, how taste has helped differentiate its products from those of competing brands, the key elements of its formidable retail strategy, how to identify communication that resonates with consumers, and how 100 Coconuts collaborated with TikTok to develop a co-branded product. Hey, folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. I am in New York City in the Tribeca neighborhood. And sitting with me right now is Gregory Lowe. Yes. The founder and CEO of 100 Coconuts. How are you? And Jason Miller, the President of Sales of 100 Coconuts. Jason, how are you? Great. Nice to meet you, Ray. Nice to meet you as well. Greg, you and I have already met. It was part of our Elevator Talk series, which profiles early stage and emerging brands in the food and beverage industry. If I recall, our expert for that episode was Tom First, right?
[00:32:19] Sovos Brands: Yes, it was.
[00:32:20] Ray Latif: Tom Furst, the co-creator of Nantucket Nectars. Nantucket Nectars. And now he has a brand called Culture Pop. He's doing pretty well. So I hope his advice was good.
[00:32:30] Sovos Brands: It was very good. I enjoy speaking to people who've done this well in the industry.
[00:32:35] Ray Latif: I think he qualifies as Someone Has does those things well. Jason, you joined the company in January. Is that right?
[00:32:42] Mike Schneider: That is correct. I left a company out of Atlanta called Biolite. I helped build that company up to about $22,000, $23,000 doors and got to about close to $25 million. So I was looking for a new opportunity and I got introduced to Craig through some friends, mutual friends, and I just was excited to jump on this opportunity. Fantastic Coconut Water and the vision and the opportunity was there for me to jump on.
[00:33:09] Ray Latif: It is a fantastic coconut water. I'm sipping on some right now. This is the original, the OG, never from concentrate. It's a fantastic product. And I want to talk about exactly why you saw coconut water as somewhere, as a category that you could disrupt in so many ways and be successful at because it's a category that has a ton of players, has one really, really big player and seems to be one that is In so many ways, like a forgotten giant in the beverage industry. Most definitely. But let's start with your story. I mean, how did you get into the beverage business? Why did you want to become an entrepreneur?
[00:33:46] Sovos Brands: That's a good question. First, thank you for giving me this platform, BevNET, and you guys. Taste Radio is amazing. Thank you. It's an amazing program, and I'm excited to be on it. So first, how did I get into CPG, right? Crazy story. My background is in tech, so I build apps for a living for a number of companies, from celebrities to major Fortune 500 companies. And I was actually in Singapore at the time building an app for ABC, a little show called $100,000 Pyramid. Love, love the $100,000 Pyramid. Well, I'll get you the app. They made me put AI into it, so it took me a little while longer because they wanted people to be able to play with one single player. I'm like, you want to play with your friends? Why don't you play by yourself?
[00:34:27] Ray Latif: Although I will say that I'm an old school $100,000 pyramid guy. I'm Dick Clark. Not a Strahan guy? I don't know. Like the remakes sometimes, like, you know how they remade Press Your Luck? Yeah. With Elizabeth Banks? Yeah. And I'm like, it's just not the same without Peter Smarkin.
[00:34:42] Sovos Brands: I gotta say it's really good. Obviously Strahan's going to be listening as he's one of our partners. Oh, you know what, by the way, Dick Clark sucks.
[00:34:50] Mike Schneider: Straight in all the way. You need to give him kudos, Ray.
[00:34:53] Sovos Brands: So, no, but I was in tech and I was in Singapore building an app, like I said, and I was jet lagged as hell. Like, just, it shouldn't occur. Sorry, cut that out. No, it's fine. I was jet lagged and my spouse called me and said, you know, she was pregnant with my son. It's four years ago, right? He's four years old now. Shout out to little G. And she was worried about lactation. So she was worried about breastfeeding and couldn't go to sleep. And she said, I went to the doctor and, you know, the time difference. And the doctor said, I have to drink coconut water if I want to lose this fear of being able to breastfeed. We wanted to come up with a product that tastes amazing, right? And that had a sweeter flavor profile, because I felt that if she's going to drink it, then I'm probably going to be drinking it as well if it's in the household for you married and spousal folks out there. So I started doing some Google searching and started to find out that coconuts are just like apples. You have different flavors and profiles, et cetera. And I'm probably being a little long, but decided to buy a ticket to Vietnam that day. and go see if I can find these amazing coconuts where this species of coconut that was sweeter grew. So caught a flight, bought a, got a, well bribed and got a visa and went over there and brought the product back. I don't know what I'm supposed to say. Well, the statute of limitations has probably passed at this point. I think you're fine. So, well, the Vietnam government can't come get me. So, but anyway. You might have to find a new supplier though. Yeah. I love those guys over there. So I brought it back and she started to drink it and she loved it. She said, you have to bring this to market. And being an entrepreneur, I just never got into CPG, but I said, okay, let me see what I can do. So, I mean, that's the long of the short, how I got into CPG. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision just to go to Vietnam. Super spur-of-the-moment. And I've been back now since, and it's an amazing, beautiful country. But yeah, it was me being jet-lagged and not having enough sleep and deciding that I could start it. Well, I didn't even think I could start a company. I was just going over there to get it.
[00:36:58] Ray Latif: What year was that?
[00:36:59] Sovos Brands: That was 2019. 2019. 2019.
[00:37:01] Ray Latif: And so then you were like, yeah, we're going to launch, we're going to have a big year in 2020.
[00:37:05] Sovos Brands: Yeah, well, actually, let me take it back. We're going to cut that out. That was 2018. And then we were going into 19 launching, did not see the pandemic coming.
[00:37:15] Ray Latif: I don't think many people do at all.
[00:37:16] Sovos Brands: Actually, I was sick coming back from Vietnam, and I was sick for about three weeks. And I was like, what the hell is wrong with me? And nobody knew. So afterwards, you know, obviously we found out, but then we launched right before the pandemic. So we did a big event in the Hamptons with John Legend. Obviously being New Yorkers, it got us a ton of buzz and we launched D2C online directly and it did pretty well. Then we launched Amazon and we went to number one new beverage immediately and then we decided to go in the store. So that's kind of like the lead up to kind of where we are now, but much larger, I would say.
[00:37:51] Ray Latif: Aside from the difference in taste and you having a sweeter coconut water, where else do you see an opportunity to be different and disruptive within the category?
[00:37:59] Sovos Brands: Most definitely. You know, we like to call ourselves a lifestyle brand. And what does that mean? We want to tell stories, right? 100 Coconuts is about keeping it real, keeping it authentic. The vernacular, keep it real, keep it 100. That's where we got the name from. So we want to tell these stories, right? These authentic stories of people who are doing great things in America, but living their true lives. That's outside of the liquid. Another thing is our vessel. Obviously we're in a can and you can see that it keeps the taste fresher. It also allows for us to keep the can cold. So those are two differentiations that I would say that go into our coconut water besides the taste. But I think the storytelling is the most important thing.
[00:38:40] Ray Latif: Operating and running a brand that is primarily D to C and then having to adopt the traditional blocking and tackling that goes along with brick and mortar. Yep. It feels like a bigger leap than I think people really understand. And there were a lot of brands that were launched in 2020, 2021. And now they're all realizing seemingly that they have to do the things that every food and beverage brand has done for the past 50 years. So what's that process been like?
[00:39:06] Sovos Brands: Do you see the bumps and bruises on my head? That's from just falling and getting back up. Now, I will say we got a great opportunity coming out from Publix. They gave us a great opportunity to put us on shelf. They're one of our, if not our first retailer. So we were really excited about that opportunity. HEB gave us an opportunity after that. And I'll be honest, when I had those conversations, I just came in and I said, look, I'm launching a Coconut Water. This is who I am. This is where I'm from. And this is our Brandt Gehrs. And I think they saw that and they loved it, right? They started to get excited about what we were bringing to the table. So when we talk about blocking and tackling, what do we have to do to get there? You know, merchandising, you know, that's one thing that we had distribution, DSD, going national. We launched with Kahee and UNFI just to be able to get in the store final mile wise. So those are some of the things that I had to overcome in our supply chain to understand that it's sending it to the customer directly. something totally different than getting it to the distribution centers on time and making sure that they deliver to the grocers on time as well. So it's been a learning experience, but I will say that I wouldn't have done it any other way because that's the only way is right. You fall, you mess up, and then you get back up. So short or long of it is, yeah, that's how we did it. A lot of sampling, sending out samples over and over again. Being the first black-owned coconut water helped us a lot because when that news came out, And now we're minority certified, it gives us opportunities like Target, Walmart, some of the other stores that we're in currently. So yeah, it's been a challenge.
[00:40:39] Ray Latif: I'm going to play devil's advocate for a second, because I'm going to put myself in the seat of a retail buyer at H-E-B or Publix. And first of all, you have to get that meeting, which I want to ask you about that. But second of all, you have to convince the buyer that they should bring another coconut water onto their shelves, into their stores.
[00:40:59] Sovos Brands: Feels like kind of a hard sell. I will say that, and I'll let Jason, because he's the one who's doing a lot of blocking and tackling as of late. But, you know, in that conversation with Publix, let's just talk there. I think authenticity is everything about our brand. And one thing that I will say is we put the product in front of them and said, this is the best tasting coconut water that you'll try. And when they tried it, they saw that we were not lying, right? And that was huge. He, you know, Jason said earlier, let's not discount the liquid. It's one of the best coconut waters on earth. Now, with that being said, you still have to get the buyer to taste it. If you look at our can and our brand, And that green color that you see is very unique and iconic. It stands out on shelf. And we did a great job at keeping the logo very succinct and in line with what people want to see. So I think that helped us a lot. So it was the design and the liquid that really helped us get our foot in the door. And then it was the storytelling afterwards that kept us on the shelf. And I want to get to Jason, but how did you get that first meeting with Publix? It was a cold email. Yeah. Yeah. I sent the email to one of the buyers there. How do you know who the buyer was? I looked it up online. I was a gangster with it. What do you call it? Guerrilla style? Did you guess the email address? I did. You know, basically Publix is, you know, this last name for us. Should I say this?
[00:42:18] Ray Latif: There's a lot of things we've already said. We just need to keep going. There's a last name, first name, and then you just guess. I think the bribing the official, the Vietnamese official, is probably... That was the least. This looks pale in comparison. People would love to listen to this.
[00:42:37] Mike Schneider: I will share more. I think you met with Jeff Smith, right? Yeah, Jeff Smith.
[00:42:41] Sovos Brands: So Jeff, he's moving on from Publix now. Congratulations to him. But we met with Jeff and I told him my story. I told him how I had some A-holes come and try to replicate my brand. And he understood what we were doing and he understood the way that the world works and he gave us the opportunity. So I think he saw that I was a hard worker and I had success in other industries and that I wouldn't stop. Good thing he did, because now we're number seven SKU on the shelves at Public, so excited about that.
[00:43:11] Ray Latif: Out of the coconut water category?
[00:43:13] Sovos Brands: Out of the coconut water category.
[00:43:14] Mike Schneider: Yeah, out of 60 SKUs. Wow, they have 60 SKUs. 60 different sizes or flavors of coconut water.
[00:43:20] Sovos Brands: We're only number two behind Vita, because Vita has about five, six SKUs. Right, right.
[00:43:25] Mike Schneider: If we had the same amount of ACV, we'd be a top three SKU for them. We're 65%, while Vita Coco is 99.
[00:43:33] Ray Latif: I mean, going back to the branding for a second, I mean, you have this sort of Miami vibe kind of going on as you can. I can think, you know, in those public stores in Florida, I'm sure. Oh, yeah. You do quite well.
[00:43:42] Sovos Brands: Yeah. You know what? I won't say a name on here because I don't want to draw any attention to myself.
[00:43:47] Ray Latif: We've already gone over this, Greg.
[00:43:48] Sovos Brands: You can say whatever you want to say. It's fine. Well, there's a company that has a great green color. And we knew that green represents our coconut, which is the young green coconut. So we wanted to go there. And it also has a great vibe and color with our Target demo. And we wanted to make sure that our Target demo could see us on shelf when they walk into the grocery store. And I'll just say it, you know, and this may be controversial, but I know from my household, it's my spouse who shops for the family, and it's mostly mothers and and daughters and sometimes men as well, but they see colors that vibe with them and then it draws their eye. And we think that that green really drew people to the product.
[00:44:28] Ray Latif: And Jason, as Greg mentioned, okay, you can get into the store, but then you've got to support the brand on shelf. You've got to do the merchandising. You've got to do the demos. You've got to do all these things to make sure that you not only stay on the shelf, but thrive. How are you thriving at Publix?
[00:44:43] Mike Schneider: So thriving at Publix is being a good partner with them. Like you said, we have merchandising teams we use throughout the footprint of their stores to make sure the shelves are full. Promotion pricing is really key for Publix to help pull product. So we have a good schedule where we promote, you know, a good part of the year. Go from like a two for three right now. We start today in Publix for the next four weeks. and really communication with the buying team, with them, showing them how we are performing, but also how the category is. It's not just what 100 is doing, but the coconut category is growing, you know, overall 20%, very quietly. I think it's a category people, I think in some ways discount the opportunity. And I think that's where Greg came in with this great branding, great brand that, you know, Vitacoco is Vitacoco. But we can also be in the category and get our slice of the pie too, and not disrupt them because they, I mean, I'll give them credit, they're still growing as well. So supporting the retailer from soup to nuts, making sure the product gets to the stores is very important and trying to manage that. And when things aren't going well on that end, so sometimes supply chain disrupts things, you just got to be fully upfront and honest with them. And that's what everybody wants anyway today.
[00:45:59] Ray Latif: I'm surprised that the coconut water category is growing. You said at a 20% annual rate. So, I mean, I work in the beverage industry. I'm kind of surprised to hear that. Do retail buyers know the sort of trajectory that it's on at this point?
[00:46:12] Mike Schneider: That's what my job is. Not just to tell them what the number one brand is doing, but what the category is doing and the opportunity to maybe expand more space for all the brands that are trying to get into it. It's something I learned as I jumped in, as I was looking to come over, and I see the opportunity for the next five to seven years is huge. I mean, right now it's about a $2.7 billion category, and it will continue to grow easily double digits moving forward.
[00:46:40] Ray Latif: The merchandising teams that you have, are you outsourcing or are they part of the company?
[00:46:44] Mike Schneider: They're outsourced right now. We use a specific company for Florida only, and then we use Trax, which is survey.com for Publix and Walmart. And we are looking at other internal ways to kind of improve that as well as we move forward and we continue to grow. It could be in-house or just a different strategy.
[00:47:01] Ray Latif: Greg, you talked a bit about who the customer is for 100 Coconuts. Who is that customer? Can you articulate exactly who your target consumer is?
[00:47:08] Sovos Brands: Yeah, so I'll give you a term you probably never heard before, but we call them modern independents. Modern independents. Yes. And the reason why we call them modern independents is because they scale from different age groups, right? A lot of companies say we want to go after millennials or Gen Z or maybe even a little higher. But we feel that Coconut Water is a universal product that if you attract the right crowd, the right attention through social media, which we've done, then you can harness the modern independents that are usually the first movers in a product, right? So when I'm launching an app, for instance, I'll liken it to tech. First movers in the app are always the first adopters, right? And they are the modern independents of the world. They aren't looking at legacy for brands. So they're not looking to buy Nike. They're going to Allbirds because of what they're saying about the brand and they're vibing with their current tribe, so to speak.
[00:48:00] Ray Latif: It seems like social media is certainly an effective way to talk to potential and current consumers. But how did you learn about what they wanted to hear from you? How did they, how did you figure out what was resonating with them?
[00:48:13] Sovos Brands: Yeah. So, you know, we started with graphics, right? And we started to tell a story through funny graphics, through social media, sort of like the meme culture, right? We wanted to showcase the color. We wanted to showcase what coconut water could do for you. The way we look at our marketing now is we listen. We listen to the streets. We learn. We see what's vibing in the culture today. And then we try to adopt to that and tell a story via our coconut water through that. So how have we attracted customers so far? We did a partnership with TikTok. That was really good for us. We rebranded our can with the TikTok logo. I remember that. Yeah. And they did the whole branding effect. And that's been good for us. Special edition cans really drive trial with the product.
[00:48:54] Ray Latif: And so just to be clear to our audience, you literally partnered with TikTok, the company. Yep. This wasn't something where you're like, you partner with an influencer. How do you partner with TikTok? How do you get them to, to buy into your brand, so to speak?
[00:49:07] Sovos Brands: Well, um, now we're going back into the tech conversation, but I had an app called Songbooth and then they came in, I probably shouldn't say this online because I'm under NDA, but they came in and, um, yeah. stop. At this point, I will stop you. I don't want you to get sued. No, but I met the CEO. She brought us over. She loved the product. And she said, you know what? I really love this product. I want to bring it in and do something. And we went to the TikTok offices out in LA. And the team loved it and they said, you know, we want to do a design for this. So maybe about two months later, we launched the product and it was the first special edition product that TikTok had ever done. So we were really excited about that. But it came through my tech relationships. Interesting.
[00:49:52] Ray Latif: So there's the online component of what you're doing. On the ground, Jason, you know, the taste is certainly one thing. Again, everyone's talking about this is a sweeter product. But when you're doing those demos and when you're talking to retail buyers, what really gets them most excited beyond the taste?
[00:50:09] Mike Schneider: That's a really good question. Really, the story, the origin of why we're in business really captivates them. I think that's something that is always important of every brand. What's the DNA? Why it got started? And, you know, I think we're easy to deal with. We're not overcomplicated. We don't have a lot of layers. We can make decisions. We're nimble. So if someone wanted to say, we want to do X, Y, Z, we can get back to them within 48 hours and say yes or no. And that's something that I think is real important for a company like us to explore all the opportunities. Doesn't mean we're going to jump on them, but if it makes sense for both parties, we're into it. But I mean, you told me not to talk about taste, but I want to tell you, When they taste this, that's the conversation starts. And then we show them spins data and we show them their margin opportunities and things that we're willing to do support on promotion activity and what innovation we have coming. So it just opens up a whole conversation of opportunity. Doesn't mean they're always going to say yes, but we get a lot more, I guess, talks versus than we did in the past.
[00:51:15] Ray Latif: I imagine it also helps to convince consumers to try the products and to give it a chance because you have some pretty well-known investors on your team. We do. How did you build your investment team? How did you build your circle of investors?
[00:51:30] Sovos Brands: Yeah, so for me, and you know, as a CEO, I wanted to look at people who shared our vision, who love the product first and foremost. Any investor that we take on and we're closing our Series A at the moment, we put the product in their hands first before we ask any questions about the business. And that's how we start the conversation. So rather it's, you know, Michael Strahan, who is probably one of our most well-known investors, or Dr. James Cash, a Harvard professor, or some of the other financial guys I could name out there that are our investors. We just put it in front of them and said, hey, this is a great tasting product. We have a great business plan. Taste it and see what you think. And they all came on board. Now for me, We've turned down a lot of people as well, and I just want to have like minds that understand that we're telling a story with this. We haven't started. This is the beginning of everything, right? The stories that we're going to tell, some of them can be a little, you know, iffy, right? But at the same time, we're going to tell those stories because we feel that they're authentic. So for instance, I'll give an example. We did a Black Lives Matter can, BLM can. Maybe people aren't really cool with it now, because of the stories that were told. But when it came out, we wanted to tell a message about what Black Lives Matter was. And, you know, everybody had their black tile, et cetera. On Instagram. On Instagram, their black tile. And we came out with a black can with BLM on there because we wanted to showcase that, you know, we're behind this movement. And it was really just a call to action. So as we do things like that, rather it be through pride, Rather it be through, you know, Judaism, etc. Just being able to protect people's rights is something that we care about. And being authentic is the storyline. So when we look at investors, we say, how do you feel about this? And most of the time, most of our investors say, you know, we believe in what you're saying. So that's how we bring them in.
[00:53:21] Ray Latif: Are they actively, like, is Michael Strahan actively promoting the brand?
[00:53:24] Sovos Brands: So he doesn't promote, but he does in a way. So he gets on calls with us, with Walmart. He talks with distributors for us. He helps us out in a strategic way. I didn't want that. And that was for me, right? I didn't think at that early stage we needed a voice of the brand. Could Michael Strahan be an amazing voice for us? Yes. But I think right now, you know, we just want to tell a message through the liquid.
[00:53:48] Ray Latif: Greg, when I first came into the office today, you asked me how I'm doing. I said, things are good. How are you doing? You're like, just another day in the beverage industry. And I talked about how it's a grind and it always has been and will be. But I wonder, is it more of a grind or do you feel like it has been more challenging in any way as a BIPOC founder, or is it something where, you know, the industry has and continues to, you know, embrace BIPOC founders in a way that just hadn't existed?
[00:54:16] Sovos Brands: Yeah. So, you know, it's a little bit of a unique question that I'll go with because when you talk about industry wide and our partners that we've been working with, they've been amazing. I mean, just giving me an opportunity as a not in the CPG space, coming from tech, having a product that is great and giving us an opportunity to be on shelf, the real estate that they've given us has been great. And I think that story has really helped us. Now, when it comes to the other side of things, which is the building of the business, you still have those hurdles, right? You know, I've had investors say some pretty horrendous things to me. potential investors, not people who are on my cap table now, say some horrendous things to me because of that, you know, that skin color thing. So I would say that it's twofold. It's just like the world today. We're getting better on one end and on the other end, getting far worse. So as a BIPOC founder, I would say we're minority certified now, which has been amazing. We've been able to create some amazing partnerships with athletes and rappers and musicians that are outside of the scope of normal beverage businesses. And I think it adds a little touch of cool to it to be the first black-owned coconut water because now the culture gets behind us, which has been great.
[00:55:31] Ray Latif: It's been so great speaking with both you, Jason. Greg, thank you so much for the time. Thanks for having me here in your office. And let's do this again soon. Let's do it again. Taste Radio.
[00:55:41] Sovos Brands: Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you.
[00:55:45] Ray Latif: 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.
[00:56:34] Campbell Soup: you
