Hello, dear friends, and thanks for tuning into Taste Radio, the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food or beverage. I'm Ray Latif, the editor and producer of Taste Radio, and I'm with my co-host Jacqui Brugliera. Mike Schneider and Melissa Traverse. In this episode, we meet up with Manish Amin the VP of Marketing for organic fruits snack brands, Solely who explains how the company's marketing growth and innovation strategies have helped its products surge on shelf.
Love Solely, great brand. Mm-hmm. I first saw that brand in a Whole Foods, and I saw their jerky strips and I've been in aficionado since. Is that the right word, aficionado? I guess so. I would say so. Super fan. You could also say big fan. Yeah. Yeah. Super fan. Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna go with super fan. Mm-hmm.
John's not here to correct me. Melissa's sitting in his seats. So welcome Melissa. Thank you. I've been working on my craven impression. I think at this point I call you a numpty. Correct. Spot on. Well done, Melissa, or a pill. Well done. Now you'll be able to replace them at our events, our meetups throughout the year.
And I'm, I'll be on stage and I'll, you'll just be shaking my, your head at, at how ridiculous. To be fair, you only get 10% of the nmti. I get like 90%. That's true. That's true. Yes, indeed. We're gonna be back on the road heading to Miami Wednesday, February 18th is our first meetup of the year. It is a podcast, live podcast networking events.
You can network, you can listen, you can iib, eat and BYOS, which means bring your own samples. If any of you have attended our meetups over the past year and a half, you'll know that they are raucous events. What are you laughing at, Mike? I'm really glad you clarified that. BOS isn't Bring your own squid.
Bring your own squid. Okay, let's continue. He's cracking jokes in his head over there. He is. He really is. It's like dying over here. It doesn't exclude, don't do it. SD though if big bucket. If you're a squid snacker, please don't bring a big bucket of squid. So the event in Miami's gonna be held at Casa la Rubia, which is in the city's Wynwood neighborhood.
5:00 PM to 7:30 PM. As always, we would love to see you. We would love it even more. If you could register for the event, go to taste radio.com/events/miami. Pretty easy. Taste radio.com/events/miami. We would love to see. Yet there. Now, this is not the only meetup. That we have scheduled for the year. We've got a bunch more planned.
We're planning to be in New York in Austin and Chicago later this year, but we've got confirmed events for the fall. We're going to be in San Diego on September 15th for an event in which we're aligned with the wonderful organization naturally, San Diego. Two days later, we'll be in San Francisco.
Downtown. I'm really excited. San Francisco last year was just in, wasn't that one of your most memorable events or just like, yeah, you know, because I wasn't there as you know. Oh, you weren't there Once again. I really forgot. Always turns to me and he's like, Mike, wasn't that the best event? And I'm like, thanks Ray.
I forgot you weren't there. It was really good. That was a really good event. So I think he's trying to say so good because you weren't there. It's the best one yet. Any who? I'm excited to be back in San Francisco and of course we'll round out the year in London, October 21st, back at Trip HQ in Notting Hill.
You can get all the details and all these events@tasteradio.com slash events. Melissa, you're gonna be joining us for a lot of these events, not for Miami. I'm a little bummed out about that. Me too. Me too. It's school vacation week. So you got your own obligations. We've got some, yes. Yes, we've got some skiing planned, but I can't wait to join for the others.
Yeah, a lot more. New York, Austin, Chicago, San Diego, San Francisco, and London. And we do have limited opportunities for sponsors, partners, additional cities. So if you are looking to get involved, head to taste radio.com/events and hit us up. Absolutely, Jacqui. Definitely looking for some great partners for these events.
If you're interested, just send us a note or just email us directly. ask@tasteradio.com. Big, big, big news of the week. Bachan’s. Everyone knows batons. A Japanese barbecue sauce brand known for its delicious, authentic, clean label products. I'm reading from the press release, but it's exactly what I just said.
Has been acquired. The company that acquired it is the Marzetti company and they acquired Batchan’s for $400 million. Do not touch your pinky, Mike. $400 million. Who does that? Very exciting stuff. Marzetti is,. Some might describe as a global leader in sauces, you might have seen their dressings and dips in stores.
They also work with, uh, a bunch of food service operators. They have, uh, licensing agreements with. Well known restaurant chains including Olive Garden, Chick-fil-A, Buffalo Wild Wings, et cetera, et cetera. So. Very cool to see them getting into this space with just an outstanding brand. Congratulations to Founder and CEO Justin Gill, who's one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet in this business and who's built an incredible brand.
So according to the press release, Bachan's net sales for the 12 months ending on December 31st, 2025 we're approximately $87 million. I mean, that's a lot of sauce. That is a lot of sauce. Yeah. Yeah. They've just taken off. I mean, they have such a quality product. Really fun branding. I mean, how long have they been around to then, you know, turn around and sell for this much?
Yeah, that's a good point. I think I wanna say this is their sixth or seventh year in business. Wow. I sat down with Justin for an episode of Taste Radio. Yeah. They launched in 2019. Mm-hmm. I'm pretty sure I sat down with him in 2021 or 2022, and even then they were just a rocket ship. Yeah. So really cool stuff.
And the story, the background is, is, is such a great story. So. Baan means grandma in Japan, and so he based this company off of his grandmother's recipes and his family's recipes just in general. But this is an ode. This brand is ant ode to his grandmother, which is really cool. Mm-hmm. I think that Baan will be able to lend some real cultural credibility to.
Marzetti, they've, you know, certainly built that up for themselves and I think it's something that'll translate really well. And in the reverse. Mart's focus on food service I think will be a really nice opportunity for Marzetti. Batons had a partnership with Chopped. They also had another one, so they've, they've dabbled in food service for a bit, but it seems like there's plenty of room to grow that business.
So it seems like a really great partnership on both sides. Seems to fit into their portfolio from a product perspective, but for me, their brand kind of fits into maybe a new spot for them. You're looking at a lot of their dressings in the licensing category. So you've got Olive Garden, Chick-fil-A.
Buffalo Wild Wings, Arby, subway, Texas Roadhouse, just to name all of them. And then you've got these retail brands that they've built up that are, you know, New York Bakery and Sister Schubert's, which is dinner rolls and yeast breads, a lot of specialty food brands. And then this one. Maybe pushing them into a different space compared to some of their other, uh, products.
I think this is the dream for Botchan, for Justin. I mean, his goal was to get people to taste the recipes of his family that have been passed down for generations. And now what this deal does is increase distribution of bot ons pretty dramatically and in a way that I feel is really satisfying for him.
Not because of the purchase price. I mean, certainly $400 million is nothing to sneeze at, but because the vision was to introduce an ethnic culinary sauce that most people probably haven't been exposed to in the past and now. We'll be able to have much more flavorful food and barbecue than they had been able to have in the past.
I mean, if you think about all the barbecue sauces that are out there, and Chens, if you think about it, it's, it's, it's not a very viscous sauce. It's pretty thin, actually. So I think when people think about barbecue sauces, they think of something that's really thick and saccharin almost, and this is a completely different.
Type of experience and and use case. When I first saw batons at Costco, I thought, wow, I can't believe they're here. This was super early on, and I think that's such a good example of how Batons made sure that they weren't sequestered to the international aisle. They made sure to be in mainstream grocery.
Scaled into more mainstream. I'm so surprised you mentioned Costco, 'cause you know they're in your favorite store and And Market Basket course. Yeah, market Basket. But I think I saw them in Costco much before I saw them at Market Basket. But to your point, they did a phenomenal job of being distributed in mainstream spots and got themselves next to.
Mainstay old school brands. And so you had a chance to, as you were looking for whatever it is you were looking for, have your eyes come across them. And that was, that's something we haven't seen a lot of in that category. They took something that I think. So many consumers had never heard of nevermind used, which is a Japanese barbecue sauce and made it mainstream.
Consumers used it however they wanted to, and I think they also did a really, really great job of focusing on distribution and household penetration. Those are actually a couple of things that Ryan Williams of North Hall mentioned in a podcast that I just recorded for non base. Ryan Williams and North Hall have a data report on non base in our, in our data hub that everyone should definitely check out.
But Ryan was talking about how profitability is not. Just the goal that people are talking about anymore, that it really is all about capital efficiency and making sure that you're not trying to stay profitable if it means slow growth. He made the point like, if you wanna grow a brand and have it for your family and pass it down to your kids, then fine.
That's, that's fine. But most people, that's not what most people in this industry are looking for. So profitability alone. It's really not what the goal is. You wanna make sure that you're turning that capital into scale revenue and improving margins, which is exactly what Buton did. You know? I noticed too.
They're very disciplined in terms of product innovation. They stuck to sauces, which certainly means an efficient supply chain. That's a really good point. I mean, like, I think a lot of brands like Aans with a, you know, a great following and a name that is respected and recognized might say, okay, let's go into dumplings or something like that.
I mean, we've seen other brands do just that. Mm-hmm. But you're right, they stuck to what they know and they honed in on. Flavor differentiation, introducing new products that way, but never really got into other categories. I was just reading the article about Evergreen waffles in Noosh with Emily Groden.
She was talking about how the breakfast sandwiches that they launched were amazing and consumers love them, but because of the additional resources and labor required to make an entirely different product line, they had to. Put those by the wayside for the moment. But again, it just shows you how efficient you can be when you're disciplined the way that Baan was.
And that probably also lined them up perfectly to be acquired by Martti. If they were going into other categories, they probably wouldn't have, you know, maybe known what to do with those other categories. Mm-hmm. Good points. Good point. Indeed. I'm gonna have a hard time talking about this one 'cause it's, it's a challenging story to talk about as we saw on Notch recently.
Our very own, Brad Avery and Monica Watrous covered the story about Peter Attia, the well-known physician and wellness influencer who was mentioned in hundreds of emails with Jeffrey Epstein, and those emails were released recently by the US Department of Justice. Peter is the Chief Science Officer and an investor at David Protein.
He's also invested in and advised a G one Magic Spoon and LMNT among others. I mean, this is a PR nightmare for those companies, certainly for Peter Tio, but all the companies he is involved with, as noted in the article, you know, he isn't just a celebrity endorser for these brands. He is their quote, trust architect.
I don't know what you do with this story. If you're one of these brands, fire your trust architect. Uh, that's one thing you can do. I have certainly heard him on his podcast talk about Ag One and LMNT, so certainly he touts the brands that he invests in and that he advises. But on the other hand, I'm sort of wondering how many people.
Really buy element because Peter Atia is associated with it. Or AG one because Peter is, I'm, I'm just wondering what the actual damage is. Well, the bigger problem is gonna be how many people will not buy LMNT. Mm-hmm. Because he's associated with the brand, or when they find out that he's associated with the brand.
But the question really is in a sea of people who are associated with the Epstein files now. Is he going to be the one that's focused on by consumers? Chances are lower. Given the high profile of the people who have been mentioned and the things that a lot of folks are trying to uncover still. Mm-hmm. I think it.
Kind of opens the door though, for consumers to ask, are these brands asking the right questions? Are they looking? Mm-hmm. For the right advisors, what's their decision making like, because they have their trust architect as this person, so are they making other maybe sketchy decisions as well? You're spot on, but there's also a question that you're not asking.
Mm-hmm. And the question that the consumers are gonna ask is, did they know? Mm-hmm. Did the brand on some level know? Mm-hmm. That's a hard answer, right? I mean, how do you know? How well do you know your partners or your investors, especially from a personal standpoint? I've talked to a lot of founders who talk all about culture and aligning with the right people, and a lot of that I think is done on the business level, sort of a surface business level.
I mean, you don't live with these folks. I mean, you don't spend a ton of time, even, even for founders who do spend a significant amount of time with your investors or advisors, it's, it's hard really to know people as well as you might want to know them and how much he was mentioned in the Epstein files is detailed in the NAS article, so you can read that in nash.com.
I mean, some of the stuff you might not want to read, honestly, it's pretty cruel and. Disgusting stuff. I mean, I'm not even gonna dignify some of the stuff that he said in these evening emails. It's, it's pretty bad in terms of the brand equity that was lost and the overall damage to the brands. It also makes me think about Subway and Jared, of course, I know certainly that Subway suffered when the scandal was unfolding, but I'm unclear on what the lasting damage to Subway was.
Moving on to someone who, I guess probably has less controversy surrounding his life, even though he's, what, 93 now? William Shatner. Yeah, I would say so. You know, was William Shatner ever, has he ever been embroiled in controversy? I can't think of anything bad about him, but there might be. Yeah. I mean, he infamously.
Got in fights with Leonard Nemoy when they were on Star Trek because Shatner always wanted more lines to say on the uh, episodes. He was always like, why, why did Nemoy have more lines than I do? 'cause he's the, he was the head hon show. Okay. For folks who have no idea who William Shatner is, he was the original Captain Kirk on Star Trek.
So when they had the Star Trek TV show in the sixties mm-hmm. I didn't actually watch it 'cause I wasn't 1160s. Yay. 1990s. Um, so you're more of a TNG guy? I'm Star Trek the next generation. Right? Me too. Yeah, there you go. He has a couple of controversies. Okay. But Anyw, who, he's been out there and doing movies and tv and he's just known for his kind of just general antics as an aging man.
And I would describe this new campaign. Those are what his controversies are around. His worldview is very, very old. Okay. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Well, I, I would describe the brand that he's aligning with for this new campaign as relatively old as well. So Kellogg's Raisin brand? Yes. Yes. Okay, perfect. Has partnered off with William Shatner.
Is he gonna be the Kellogg's Raisin man to tackle America's fiber gap with a new campaign called Will Shat. Oh my God. It's kind of good. You have to admit. It's pretty good. Okay, so according to Kellogg, for Kellogg, well done. It's good. According to Kellogg's press release here. If you're already planning your game day spread.
Kellogg's Raisin Bran has a message for your quote, future self. Today the brand revealed its first big game spot starring a legendary actor, William Shatner, the mission tackling the 95% fiber gap identified by the 20 20, 20 25 dietary guidelines for Americans. 'cause let's be honest, we've all experienced that quote, gut regret the morning after indulgence.
So basically they're saying you need to relieve yourself after eating all those chicken wings. And hamburgers and nachos, and the best way to do so is to make sure you have a full belly of William Shatner's Raisin brand. I have a better spokesperson sitting across the table from me, but okay. I don't think I.
Melissa Melissa Shat is a, is a, is necessarily the campaign slogan you want that's less of a play on my name, I suppose. Yeah. Less of a play on your name. I don't think that's, uh, that's necessarily Melissa Traversed too. Yeah. Okay. You know, I think the partners, I think the partnership is hilarious, but I do have an issue with.
Kellogg's Raisin brand because I looked up the nutritionals. It's only seven grams of fiber in one serving. I had to look this up because I was like, raisin Bran and, is that really even that full of fiber? No, actually it isn't. For 190 calories and 18 grams of sugar, it's seven grams of fiber. Now what I would wanna do is partner with smart brand, which is my sort of.
Fiber cereal obsession, 17 grams of fiber in the smart brand and eight grams of added sugar. To me that that's a much better allegory to, you know, using the word. Shat. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's funny about this, you know, this campaign is clearly geared toward people who are older, who know William Shatner, who know the Raisin Bran name and just need to be reminded of both.
'cause clearly you're not gonna get, I mean, I would be shocked if there were some, you know, 22-year-old who's just like, oh, I'm gonna go out and get some Raisin brand now. Right. I mean, like, it just doesn't make a lot of sense. But, so I think this is just about. Reminding people that Rai brand still exists and you know, maybe that's it.
They, according to the company, a decent way to get some fiber. But according to Melissa, it's, it's just okay. It's mid at best you'd be better off drinking some Listerine, is what you're saying. That's right. What does that mean, Ray? Don't do that. PSA don't drink Listerine. Okay. I don't know where that you're pinned.
I wonder how much fiber is. In these new organic breakfast bars that I have from Dave's Killer Bread Love. Dave's Killer Bread. Mm-hmm. Love it. Mm-hmm. A brand that started out as a Better for you Organic Bread company. They've since expanded into a ton of different categories, particularly within snacks.
So these new organic breakfast bars are reminiscent of a Nutrigrain bar, except they're way better. These taste amazing. They're not as like flimsy as nutri green bars, so there's a little bit more of a, I wouldn't say they're crispy, but there's a little bit more of a a, a give or less of a give to these things.
They're organic. They come in three varieties. This is their strawberry crumble variety, which is great. They have three grams of protein. Only four grams of fiber, Melissa, sorry. But 15 grams of whole grains. They contain 10 grams of sugar per bar. I've had these, these are fantastic. Absolutely one of my favorite Dave's Killer Bread products.
And, and they've come out again with a ton of different snacks. Anything from pretzels to bars to so on and so forth. Bites. I think it's bites. Yeah. But I think they hit it out outta the park with these, and they're such a good example of a company that incorporates inclusive hiring, at least they used to.
Dave himself was formerly incarcerated, and they make a point to hire people who are formerly incarcerated so you can feel even better about eating the bars. There you go. Another bar that I have in my hand is from the fantastic folks at Midday Squares. They're known for their peanut butter squares that are just magnificent.
Peanut butter and chocolate squares that is, that are just magnificent. They're refrigerated snacks. They've been around for a while. If you go into. A whole food is a target. You'll see their bars and you'll be in love. So they re recently introduced this new No Bread pb and J, which is basically a PB and J bar that doesn't contain any bread.
It comes in this little packet. It's 1.23 ounces. It's just like a tiny little pouch. It almost looks like. Large peppermint patty package. That that, mm-hmm. Is one of the best peanut butter snacks I've had in a very long time. It's delicious. Yeah. Super good. So this, the ingredients are good. Strawberry variety.
This says six grams of protein. Four grams of fiber. Again, you have to keep it refrigerated is 130 calories per bar. The way they are able to imbue that product was. Sweetness with that layer of strawberry on the top without adding a ton of extra sugar, I thought was really amazing. Yeah, only eight grams of sugar per bar, including six grams of added sugar.
So they use things like sugar, fruit, pectin, Jerusalem, artichoke fiber. I guess that's where the fiber comes from. Uh, fruit juice concentrate. Maple syrup. So I think that's where you're getting a lot of the, uh, the sweetness. But this is like a superfood EO level peanut butter snack for me. Like I really love this.
Really? Yeah. It's really good. I could try it. And there's no chocolate in it, right? Right. No chocolate. Okay. No. All right, Jacqui. I see some cans. I got cans. I got Toma tea over here. I have their Yorba mate. Mm, which this one's ginger. And then this is Rose and these are really delicious and also very, very simple ingredients like this one, the ginger is literally just spring water mate, ginger juice and lemon juice, and has 120 milligrams of caffeine in it, which is more than a cup of coffee.
It's really, really good. Chugging it. You're gonna chug it? Yep. Okay. Wow. I need the caffeine. No, that's really, really, really good. It's very, very light. This for me would be like an energy drink, but it doesn't taste like one. Oh, yeah. It's gonna be an energy drink. Mm-hmm. Yeah. See what happens when you drink that whole thing.
If it hits you the same way a cup of coffee does. 'cause I always find yerba mate gives me more energy. Oh, it does, for sure. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It's like. Super energy. Yeah. I recall your interview with the founder of Tot Rocco Coran. He's the co-founder at Bev Net Live a couple years ago during the Taste radio studio.
Great guy. Great guy. Yeah. Love what he's doing over there and I feel like what he's doing is actually differentiated. Mm-hmm. From some of the other Yba mate brands. Some of the other energy drink brands. It feels like its own thing, which can some sometimes be hard for brands to really carve out your own space, but Tama Tea feels like.
We're doing our own thing over here. Yeah, he's really smart, really focused. Good stuff. Yeah, Absolutly. I have right here this beverage called Tart. It's labeled as an organic healthy lifestyle beverage, and they actually use tart cherry in the ingredients. The ingredients here. I was super impressed with them.
There's carbonated mineral water. Organic tart cherry, organic cranberry, lime, and lemon, and it tastes really good. And of course you get the anti-inflammatory properties from the cherry. The mineral water is, you know, a source of natural electrolytes. I do think on the front of the can, they could have promoted the benefits a little bit more.
I mean, certainly I know you have to be careful of the claims, but I think positioning this. A little bit more as a lifestyle beverage on the front of the can, I think could be an interesting move for them, but really tasty stuff. And by the way, we met Tart we, we were introduced to Tart and met its founder at the Winter Fancy Food Show and big fan of that brand.
Mm-hmm. Lindsay Frederick, who is the founder, I hope she joins us for a future episode of Elevator Talk, which is our series that profiles early stage and disruptive brands from across the food and beverage industry. But I agree with you on the front of pack there. I think that's V one. I think that's packaging.
V one for this brand, and I'm excited to see where it goes from here. Yeah, the flavor itself is really tasty, and I love the fact that they're not using any kind of either sweetener or non-nutritive sweetener. It's just the juices and the flavoring is really good. Mm-hmm. Then the other product I found in on the, uh, the shelf was this Mike's Hot Honey Syrup.
So it's syrup infused with chilies and this is something that they recommend you put in cocktails, coffee, tea, lemonade, smoothies, and milkshakes. I was trying to imagine a Mike's Hot honey milkshake and I gagged a little bit, to be honest. I mean, I can imagine maybe like. Spicy Margarita with Mike's Hot Honey.
But really the only place where I feel like this would make sense is something like a chain restaurant. I was at a John Harvard's and the waiter was telling us it. It wasn't the highlight of my dining experiences that month, but the waiter was telling us about. Martini that they had, that the, where the rim of the glass was rolled in dut from Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
Oh. So I feel like I can see where there's some opportunity in food service and you know, maybe some chain restaurants to do like a Mike's hot honey beverage. But I don't know. Would you guys use this at home? I mean, typically you wouldn't have a liter of a honey syrup or any kind of flavored syrup, uh, in your household.
I mean, maybe cocktail enthusiast. Would have a half of that bottle, but um, yeah, yeah. I prefer to use their honey over using like a big thing of syrup. Me too. Yeah, you could use it in a coffee shop. Make some hot honey lattes. Mm-hmm. That'd be fine. Okay, well I know what Mike's doing for the rest of the afternoon.
Oh yeah. I can't wait. And o overall though, the spice. It is my hot honey. FYI. Oh, good point. Good point. But like overall spicy and sweet, I get it. But Jolly Rancher just released their heatwave gummies and Rotten had their spicy gummies. But to me, I don't know. I like my spicy a little bit on the side of my sweet.
Unless it's a really special occasion. You know? That's a good point to actually, because spice definitely feels like it's having a little bit of a moment. Yeah. To at least in these first couple months of 2026. Absolut vodka. If you know that brand, remember it was really, of course, really, really big in the nineties as well.
Sure. They recently introduced new Absolut Tabasco variety. Did you see that? Hmm? Yeah. So it's actually a partnership with Tabasco. You have the Absolut logo, Tabasco underneath, and then the Tabasco logo right in the middle of the bottle. So I'm getting them to send some of it to Benet hq and maybe we can mix up some Mike's Hot Honey and Absolut Tabasco vodka and maybe some tart.
Do some shots. Do some shots. Yeah. You could use that in a Bloody Mary, you know, that could maybe work. Yeah, that'd be good. That's, that's a good point. Jacqui's thinking about bloody Mary.
Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio right now. I am honored to be sitting down with Manishh Amin, who's the VP of Marketing for Solely Manish. It's great to see you. Yeah, thank you for having me. I love Solely. Love that. I'm just gonna lead off with that. Love that. Yes. Such a great brand. For folks who are not familiar, and I don't know how you could not be familiar at this point, what do you guys do?
We make organic fruit snacks that are indulgent, convenient, and ultra clean. We're giving consumers access to really indulgent fresh fruit. In a convenient way that is not only permissible but encouraged. The first time I encountered solely it was your dried fruit strips that are individually packed, and it was mango that really, it's, it's, it's primarily mango that you sell on your fruit strips at this point.
Right. Uh, our core ingredient is mango, but we have a variety of different, we have a pineapple base as well as banana. And so yeah, you've expanded from those fruit strips into a lot of different other categories as well. Gummy type ingredients? Yes. Smaller sizes. Just talk about your lineup, your product portfolio.
Our portfolio is comprised of three segments. Our fruit jerky, which is those fruit strips. Yep. Gently pressed fruit strips that have like a chewy, moist texture. Peel it open, similar to many other jerky strips. Mm-hmm. Our fruit gummies, which are what most consumers view as like traditional fruit snacks.
Yep. But again, one, two, or three ingredients. Uh, fruit gummies, poppable, fun, easy to carry on the go. And then our dried fruit, which is plastic dried fruit. Yep. But because we're vertically integrated, our product performance is, you know, far superior than a lot of the other category incumbents. Yeah. I shouldn't say this, but your dried fruit, especially your mango strips and your whole slices of mango.
Yes. They're really second to none. I eat a lot of that stuff and I don't know how you get so much flavor. You know, dried fruit's kind of a weird thing because you want them to be somewhat moist, which sounds counterintuitive. How do you do, I mean, what's the trade secret here? Yeah, I mean, I have to, hats off to our procurement team, our manufacturing team, for creating the best partnerships, selecting handpicked sun, ripened fresh fruits, gently drying it so that it's food safe, but perfect for that indulgent experience that you just described.
The first time I saw Solely was at Whole Foods and the fruit strips, or fruit jerky, however you wanna describe it. Was sort of like in a strange place in the store. It wasn't really like snacks. I, I don't know where it was, but people were buying the products. They saw it and they were like, okay, this is really interesting.
Now that you're a little bit more established, how do you think about where you want to be? How are you as the VP of marketing helping consumers to identify this product and realize that it should be a part of their lives? It should be a part of their pantries? Yes. Love that. We ask consumers. We ask consumers directly where we do expect to find this product.
We found that our fruit jerk strips should be found in the food snack set. So that's what we've been telling our retailers. You know, we've had immense growth year after year after year, and we've told our retailers, consumers are demanding and looking for our product and where they're looking for, they've told us directly it is in the fruit snack set because it is not just a better for you, but a truly good for you fruit snack.
And ironically, the category is called fruit snack. But there's hardly any fruit in those snacks. I think what we've done is taken exactly what consumers are looking for and expecting in terms of like an indulgent fruit experience and made it convenient to match the, the expectations and desires that they have.
I'm gonna get in trouble here. I'm gonna try not to get in trouble here because you referenced these fruit snacks and we all know the brand, or at least the brand that's licensed. And you look at the ingredients and it's artificial ingredients, artificial this, and I'm like, how are we still feeding this to kids?
And I think about solely and just standing on the right side of history, you know, trying to do the right thing for today's kids and, and those coming, you know, tomorrow as well. But it really starts with the parents. How do you communicate that message of this is better for your kids now? And they're going to appreciate this product, you know, as they continue to grow.
How do you curate that message for parents? Yeah, great question. I don't fault the category leaders for using ingredients that are maybe broadly available and accessible to them. I fault to make Bru Tax. You know, consumers have said, and, and this should be no surprise, that they want Whole Foods. They want whole fruit nutrition.
And so what we've done is we've augmented the presence of our one, two, or three ingredients. We've called out. One or two ingredients on our packaging, on all of our communications to demonstrate to consumers that this is effectively like a fresh mango. Mm-hmm. That has been gently pressed and dried and made convenient for you.
So it is about really connecting the idea that what you're getting is exactly what you see on the front of the pack, and it's exactly what you would love to feed your children or your families if you had unending amount of time. Transparency, very important. Where do tastes and macros fit into that message?
Taste is number one. Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. So I think oftentimes there's a concern, there's a perception that better for you or good for you. Products and brands don't taste great. We lead with that because the product is truly indulgent. I mean, our category leading repeat rate demonstrates the fact that people keep coming back.
They try it once. And so we show the real fresh fruit on the front of our pack on all of our communications, but we also support that with this one or two ingredient communication so that families can feel good about. Feeding themselves and their children solely fruit snacks. Amazing. Manish, thank you so much for taking the time.
Thanks for doing what you do. I do feel like it's important. I'm gonna stand on the soapbox over here. It's really important for entrepreneurial brands, for emerging brands to do what they're doing because it's affecting how the big brands think about what they're doing and to push those companies to do better.
And Solely is one of those brands that's making our food better, so thank you for doing what you're doing. Love that. Yeah. Thank you for having me. Yeah.
