[00:00:03] Ray Latif: Close enough, actually. Kurnoosh is close enough.
[00:00:06] John Craven: Kurnoosh, yeah, no problem.
[00:00:07] Ray Latif: Okay, well, we'll start there.
[00:00:09] John Craven: Sure. We already did start. Karmoosh. There are all these Louisianans named Karmoosh.
[00:00:14] Ray Latif: We should probably explain to the audience exactly what's happening right now. This is Ray Latif. I'm here with John Craven. This is the BevNET Podcast, and we're here with Jerry Karmoosh, who is an esteemed figure in the world of beverage reporting. Jerry, thanks so much for being with us. Yeah, my pleasure. So you had mentioned that there was a long line of Karmoushes, is this true?
[00:00:35] John Craven: No, actually my last name, apparently, my parents were immigrants from Baghdad, Sephardic Jews, and the's apparently some expression in Arabic that's basically as rare as a Karmoush, because it's like a name that's unheard of. But there seemed to be a whole branch of Karmoushes in Louisiana of apparently Syrian origin. And one of them, of course, is Liz Karmoush, who for a while was the female MMA champion. I am not familiar with Liz. I think sponsored by Zions. So for the first time, there's some actual clout in my family line.
[00:01:09] Ray Latif: I think the check is in the mail for those from the Zions people. It's possible. I'm not sure. In any case, now we're here in Manhattan visiting with Jerry, who's, you know, you don't necessarily have a specific office. Your office is New York City, correct?
[00:01:23] John Craven: No, I'm part of Beer Marketers Insights, which has been doing beer newsletters for, I believe, 47 or 48 years now. And for the last several years, they've been based in Suffern, which is a remote suburb of New York. So you are correct in that I painfully forego the four hour round trip to go to the office every day in favor of working from my place in Manhattan, but I'm out there from time to time and it is a great crew. They're all beer writers except for me.
[00:01:54] Jerry Karmoosh: Okay. The lone non-alcoholic guy. Exactly.
[00:01:57] John Craven: But you're a big beer guy. You love beer. You know, it's kind of funny. I love beer. I've been studying it my whole life. I used to be their rival in beer coverage back in the 90s when I was at Brand Week. We kind of were friendly rivals, very similar to the way I'm friendly rivals with BevNET on non-alcoholic coverage now. and the sometimes lament that I'm being squandered on non-alcoholic brands when they could really use my help on the beer coverage, given how many letters we have. And I actually, for the first time, the last couple of years, can say in full faith that I think the non-alcoholic beverage sector is more interesting and the beer sector. I probably wouldn't have said that until just the last two or three years. And I think there's just enough wild stuff going on Compared to beer where it's, you know, like new craft brewer launches is immediately embraced, everybody loves them, somebody invests, the strategic takes them out, end of story. And non-alcoholics has become this kind of fascinating range of up-and-coming sectors that are just blowing apart, you know, everything we thought we knew about how that business operates.
[00:03:05] Jerry Karmoosh: Well, it's pretty interesting, you know, brand week back in the 90s, that was right when I started BevNET and brand week columns were some of the first thing I read on the space. I think I picked them up in my college library back then. And, you know, it's interesting looking back, it's sort of, you know, all these, I guess back then it was kind of, you know, new age beverages, which were mainly, I guess, iced teas and strange sort of, I don't know, functional beverages, stuff like Sobe and whatnot.
[00:03:33] John Craven: Yeah, I mean, actually the kind of like formative experiences for a lot of us of kind of my generation of beverages were Snapple and Arizona.
[00:03:41] Jerry Karmoosh: Right.
[00:03:41] John Craven: You know, both iced teas, both shelf stable, and the both were amazing case histories that kind of maybe color too much the way we look at beverages today.
[00:03:51] Jerry Karmoosh: Definitely, and the I think I felt like we went into like what might be referred to as like the dark ages of everything going energy drinks. But I would totally agree with you. I mean, I think it's something that the past, I don't know, geez, I guess, what, five or so years have really just changed what seems possible and what seems like is viable, right?
[00:04:11] John Craven: Yeah, it all ties into a much broader wave, which is just people rethinking food and the food supply and nutrition. And, you know, I mean, not that long ago, if you were a soft drink writer, you were covering beverage concentrate and Coke and Pepsi bottlers.
[00:04:27] Jerry Karmoosh: Concentrate prices, I remember that.
[00:04:29] John Craven: Yeah, you know, fascinating. And now it's things have moved way beyond that in a way that, you know, is kind of amazing.
[00:04:36] Ray Latif: So you've been covering the beverage space for quite some time. And Beverage Business insights covers the nitty gritty of the sort of behind the scenes in the beverage industry. And you do a really great job of covering that. What's your kind of focus? How do you how do you plan for the day for the week in terms of your coverage?
[00:04:54] John Craven: I basically work the phones furiously. I try to get, these days, partly because of the heat from BevNET, I try to get three issues out a week. And, you know, we don't want to waste our readers' time, so we early on decided to move away from any kind of fixed publication schedule. If I have nothing to say on Wednesday, I'm not putting an issue out on Wednesday just because, you know, I'm supposed to do one. And, you know, it's pretty much just what I'm hearing and what's bubbling up. So a lot of it, you know, really is partly hard work, but partly serendipity.
[00:05:24] Jerry Karmoosh: The heat from BevNET, though, I like that.
[00:05:27] Ray Latif: What's cool is that, you know, we're here on a podcast, you know, BevNET and BBI are I guess rivals in terms of coverage, but quite friendly with each other. And you keep us on our toes, and I'm sure we, in some cases, keep you on your toes. And Jerry writes a great column for every issue of BevNET magazine, which I personally enjoy reading. They're witty and informative. and show a lot of the great skill that you have as a writer that doesn't necessarily get shown all the time in your great reports.
[00:05:59] John Craven: Yeah, different form. Thank you for that. You know, we're kind of frenemies or, you know, coopetition, whatever you want to call it.
[00:06:06] Jerry Karmoosh: Well, it's a small industry of people covering it. I mean, I don't know, in all honesty, I would always tell people that they should subscribe to BBI just because, you know, it's not like there are a hundred options to choose from if you're in the space. you should get basically everything that's out there. And fortunately, it's only, I guess, a handful of us, right? Yeah.
[00:06:26] John Craven: But, you know, you guys, you know, I make a few extra calls every week because of you guys, you know, it keeps me vigilant. So it's competition in the best sense. and the, you know, we drink beers together.
[00:06:35] Ray Latif: So now our job is to try to make that about a hundred more calls than just a few more calls.
[00:06:41] Jerry Karmoosh: Well, Ray, I mean, don't tell them the truth. We just sit at the office bar and wait for BBI to come out, and the we just start actually doing some work. Someday, someday. Okay, Josh, edit that out part. Okay, thanks, sorry.
[00:06:53] Ray Latif: Now, we talked about- Not admitting or denying guilt. We talked about how quickly this industry has changed over the last five years. I mean, when I first came in, I mentioned this to Barry, and we should mention that we're at the office place of Barry Nathanson, who is the publisher of the Belvedere Magazine. I'm very indebted to him for reserving this conference room that we're in. This is a wonderful concept. There's a picture of Picasso on the wall. I shouldn't note that.
[00:07:17] Jerry Karmoosh: I'm turning around to look.
[00:07:18] Ray Latif: Or of Picasso, a Picasso photo. Nah, he doesn't have a photo. We're going to have to edit that part out, too. Anyway, yeah, when I came to this industry, it was just all energy drinks, as John was talking about. It seemed like everyone wanted a piece of the energy drink category. Now, no one wants a piece of that unless it's got some sort of natural aspect, organic aspect to it. And we've talked about the driving forces behind the change, but how are people able to keep up with these trends? In my opinion, it doesn't seem like anyone's able to keep up with it. Everyone just seems to be grasping at whatever is next, and the ones who are winning are the ones who are best funded at this point to be able to stay ahead of the curve. I mean, is that your perspective?
[00:07:59] John Craven: I mean, there's no question that being able to stay in the game is a big part of it. And so when you see previously successful entrepreneurs like Lance Collins and Mike Rapoli backing brands or, you know, Rohan Oza. It confers credibility with the trade, which is invaluable compared to some guy who came out of nowhere that nobody's ever heard of before. And obviously, it gives them a great deal of financial staying power and ability to raise capital. Those are undeniable advantages that those guys have. And yet, I think the kind of dirty secret among many of us who've covered this a long time or who've played in this business for a long time is that it is still utterly unpredictable who's going to win and who's going to lose. If you read some of the books about innovation, the common theme that seems to emerge from them is that people in the heart of a given category are usually not the ones who come up with the great new ideas. because they're just too wedded to the old ways of thinking and the can't get out of that kind of paradigm. It's usually people from outside, but not too far outside. So in beverages, it's kind of interesting. You'll see people who have come from entertainment, marketing, licensing, fashion, who can come up with some pretty credible entries because they kind of know how to appeal to consumers, but they don't know enough not to try stuff. So I would say, yes, the Ripollis and the Collinses of the world are very much to be watched as people with a greater chance to succeed, but they're not going to be the only winners by any stretch.
[00:09:37] Jerry Karmoosh: One thing that's interesting about, you know, those folks that you just mentioned is that those are people who still after their successes are fully ready to roll up their sleeves and do the sort of dirty work that's required to build a beverage brand. And you know, when you're talking about, I don't know what other professions you would list it off, but people who come from other places who've been successful and the hop into this ring. I think a lot of times they're just not totally aware of what they're getting into. Not that any entrepreneur ever is, but I think just the fact that this is a business that is, you know, it's sort of blue collar in nature, right? You've got to go into stores and move crates of liquid around.
[00:10:16] John Craven: So it's interesting in my newsletters sometimes, and my colleagues have asked me sometimes to lay off the contrast, but I will make this contrast between what I call tinkerers and what I call carpetbaggers. And our judgment isn't infallible, but I think you would agree with me that sometimes somebody comes in pitching a new brand and you can tell pretty much that they're all about the exit. They think it's gonna be an easy way to make a killing and flip a brand. and the're probably not going to show that much interest in or dedication to the day-to-day. and the on the other and the so-called tinkerers, they're people who seem to actually enjoy the challenges of motivating a sales force and distributors and tweaking a product based on what the market is telling them. and the people like the ones we've mentioned who they've already had their outsized success. There's no need for them to come back and yet they come back because they, I think they want to prove that it wasn't a fluke the first time, but they also just enjoy the challenge of trying to create something new and catch the next wave.
[00:11:19] Jerry Karmoosh: Or, you know, maybe it's a, I guess, vanity project in some cases for some people, which certainly some people adapt once they get in and figure out what the industry is really like. But I think it is, it is, you know, an interesting sort of idea that you bring up of just where these ideas come from. It's generally not the person who's gone out there and just crunched the data and come up with, I don't know, some new thing. I don't think most of these, and the are a bunch of books out there like the Mark Rampolla's book on Zico and all that. And it's just, you know, it's interesting. There's always some kind of long story of how they came up with these things.
[00:11:55] John Craven: Yeah, and often the fundamental premises upon which they launched the brand, they find that right away are completely false. and the just stay with it and the tweak it and the find kind of a niche and a rhythm and the build from there. and the's the part that to me is fascinating to watch. I try not to write off brands too early. I'm certainly never gleeful when brands don't succeed because you really never know. And it is kind of funny. I'm sure you would admit as well that when a bunch of us might be drinking beer together and kind of talking informally, we can all brag about the ones we really called. Like in my case, I started in the business the same year Arizona Iced Tea launched. and the was something about it that made me convinced they were gonna be a really big winner, even though they didn't play by any of the rules. And I also called the Red Bull phenomenon early. I talked to a couple of distributors into picking it up who'd kicked the sales guy out. So that makes me look brilliant. But then by the same token, I'm also a guy who was going around for a long time saying, could anybody have come up with a less appetizing name than vitamin water? Who wants to drink their vitamins? And I think everybody has those skeletons in the closet. You just can't really predict what's going to work.
[00:13:12] Jerry Karmoosh: Well, the quote that stands out for me on that sort of stuff is when Roja Noza spoke at BevNET Live, I guess, two, three years ago, the everything's niche until it's not. And, you know, I remember some of those, I guess, Arizona's sort of formation was before my time. You know, certainly Red Bull and vitamin water, and even more recently things like Vitacoco or sparkling ice or bi. And, you know, they're things that I think people were quick to... sort of poke fun at and say it's crazy. And right. Yeah. You know, now it's kind of like you look back and I don't know, you have to ask yourself, well, why was it crazy? Like, you know, I think just because it was new and different and the's something that is, you know, a testament to the entrepreneurs behind them that actually had, you know, the hustle and whatever it took to get these brands off the ground. I don't think there's anything that ever seemed like a total lock to me. I think there's plenty of stuff where the entrepreneurs thought it was a total lock because of the team, the money, the idea, you know, I don't know, whatever it is they did, but it didn't work out, right? Yeah.
[00:14:14] John Craven: It's kind of, you know, and, and in my earlier career, I used to write about stuff like technology, mainframe computers, things like that. And I sometimes like to tell people that beverages is way more complex than computers because On the technology side, if your machine is faster, cheaper, and conforms to the standards, there's a good chance you're going to win. And in beverages, who knows why a particular brand breaks out at a given time. There are just so many imponderables, and the makes it harder to judge, you know, which are going to be the winners and which ones are going to fail.
[00:14:45] Jerry Karmoosh: I guess if only there were specs that told you what the consumer is going to want to eat or drink, right? It'd be a lot easier.
[00:14:51] John Craven: And of course, that's the beauty of the segment is there's no entry barrier to speak of, you know, anybody can get in it, find co-packers, find, you know, angel investors and get a concept out there. And, you know, obviously, it's, you know, beverages in some ways is a. pure expression of marketing in that sense. So in my brand week career, I had other categories I thought about, obviously, beyond beer and beverages. and the was none where it was as pure as beverages in terms of somebody has a concept, and it's not going to take 18 months to get the product into the market and start getting actual market feedback on it.
[00:15:32] Ray Latif: Yeah, no, we mentioned a couple of things already. We mentioned just in talking about what brands can do to succeed and being well capitalized is obviously one thing. You mentioned persistence. You saw in some of the brands and the executives that have come up with successful brands. What else is out there that you've seen in your history in the non-alcoholic beverage industry that has translated to success? You mean in terms of personal qualities? I guess in terms of personal qualities, in terms of business strategy,
[00:16:01] John Craven: Yeah, it's a bunch of warring impulses. I like people who are stubborn. But at the same time, it does seem like it's good to be stubborn, but with this receptiveness to what the market is telling you. So you don't abandon the concept. You don't abandon the whole enterprise at the first sign of adversity. But at a certain point, you realize the brand's not working. The package is not working. And you're agile enough to react to it. And obviously, when you're talking about the reasons why the major strategic companies have trouble innovating, that's a large part of it is that there are too many career hits that you take if the things you do don't succeed. It doesn't look good to have to be constantly reformulating your product and changing the package. And entrepreneurs have that luxury. As a corollary of that, though, that's one of the reasons that in my newsletter I often exhort people to take their time, not pursue the national land grab, focus on a given channel or region, and I kind of say make your mistakes off-Broadway, because that way the stakes are not that high, you haven't risked as much capital or credibility, and you can take what the market is telling you and just keep tweaking things until you think you have it more or less right, and the that's the time to go bigger.
[00:17:23] Ray Latif: So along this storyline, along these talking points, who's your favorite entrepreneur in this industry and who's the person that you feel like is a really good example for future entrepreneurs to come into beverages?
[00:17:36] John Craven: Okay, well, that's a good one. I guess I shouldn't be publicly proclaiming favorites, but among the people I admire, Mark Rampolla and the Goldman would be two of them. Seth, of course, of Honest Tea fame and Mark of Zico. and the reason beyond the fact that they're obviously smart and very resourceful is that they seem to, I'm not even sure I believe that notion of like having a high emotional IQ, but if that phrase makes any sense, they've got it in that they're, you know, guys who are kind of like balanced in their outlook in life, they can get absorbed into a strategic and not rebel and be thrust out within a year or two, you know, after countless blow ups in conference rooms. So, you know, I kind of feel like that's the way the business works these days when the strategics get involved so early in a brand's lifestyle. it's really helpful to have that ability to kind of understand them, tough it out, try to hold onto your principles, your core principles, and the maybe make the needed compromises you do to kind of keep the overall thing going forward. So I admire them about that. I love Lance Collins, even though we're constantly at loggerheads. I think we are right now over several issues. Oh yeah? Tell us all about it. And, you know, Lance to me is the classic tinkerer. And, you know, what I loved about it is I remember when he sold Fuse and Nos to Coke. I'm not sure he ever like acknowledged the specifics, but far as I could tell, he had a three-year non-compete in non-alcoholic beverage. And during that three-year period, he got involved in every conceivable, liquid category that impinged on non-alcoholic beverages, but did not blatantly violate his non-compete. He was doing Mexican style beers. He was doing natural sweeteners. And I looked at a guy like that and I was like, that guy, He hates not being in it. And I know the minute the clock strikes midnight on that three years, he's going to have a concept ready to go right in the heart of non-alcoholic beverages. And of course, that proved to be body armor.
[00:19:54] Ray Latif: Lance is a hustler in the best sense of the word in that he's always out there trying to win. And it sounds like he's on his way, or it seems like he's on his way again with Core. Core, yeah, it's kind of amazing.
[00:20:07] John Craven: Not just the water, but as a whole platform. And I'm not even sure I know what perfect pH means. I don't think anyone does. It's a positioning statement, but it seems to be a fudge factor. Like if the alkalines don't work out, well, you can always come back home to me. And Killer Package, which is trademark, Lance Collins, and yeah, he just seems to know how to come up with items that resonate. I see the most unlikely people on the subway in New York and remote parts of Brooklyn carrying core water.
[00:20:36] Jerry Karmoosh: Not— Which is always a good litmus test of just, you know, mainstream for sure. Yeah. Curb appeal. I think— Literal and, you know, finding it on the curb.
[00:20:45] Ray Latif: That's how I know. And I mean, like, it's funny in the streets of Boston. I mean, I think for the first time when I saw, I was dumping some things into a recycling bin, I saw all these bottles of Bayh. I'm like, wait a minute, this is like two years ago. Who's buying all this Bayh? Apparently a lot of people are buying Bayh and a lot more continue to.
[00:21:01] John Craven: Same here. Yeah, it's funny. You know, New York is kind of the ultimate place to conduct street tests. You know, I think my wife would attest that I'm very diligent on that score. While we go out for some of those strolls and kicking and the trash in the curb. How many AM FM radios do you own? And yeah, for the longest time, I remember it was Arizona Ice-T, Poland Spring, Snapple. Those were the three that you found in the trash all the time. And now it's kind of amazing you don't see that anymore. You know, Snapple still sells big time in New York. There's no question, but you don't see that much of it doesn't dominate like it used to. And I'm starting to see buy and I see Zico and Vitacoco very often, Core definitely.
[00:21:43] Jerry Karmoosh: And a lot less energy drinks too, just from point before. I feel like that's kind of, you know, there's like a shift there.
[00:21:50] John Craven: I still see a lot of Red Bull and Monster.
[00:21:52] Jerry Karmoosh: Well, Red Bull, Monster, sure, but I think there was a point at which it was just so many different brands, but only those couple remain.
[00:21:59] John Craven: Yeah, and you bring up energy. I think it's worth kind of digressing to that a minute. I mean, to me, that category is kind of miraculous in that We're in this thing now for, what is it, 19 years. They've still generally held incredibly rich margins. and the might be slowing down just lately, but they've been growing at an incredible clip for basically two decades. And you look at that and you go, well, how's that possible? You know, they're basically, you know, kind of a new twist on CSDs. And I say the undeniable conclusion that one has to reach is that the three core brands, meaning Red Bull, Monster and Rockstar are still in independent hands. Some of them might go through major soft drink systems in terms of distribution, but in terms of the ownership, you know, they're running their own show. It does seem like that allows them to kind of avoid all these traps that seem inevitable when the strategics get involved in terms of hitting the price button at the least sign of adversity or resistance. So I, you know, I take my hat off. I go, boy, they've proved the right way to do it in beverages in terms of like maintaining a premium category.
[00:23:10] Jerry Karmoosh: Right. I mean, that's certainly, I think there's a lot of stuff you can look at energy, at least for the big brands kind of now in hindsight. and the was a segment that a lot of people thought would just be a kind of flash in the pan or a, a niche and it's exactly, you know, what you said. I mean, it's taken over, you know, basically a lot of the CSD space and the've managed to do it for a really long time, too.
[00:23:32] John Craven: I can attest. I can recall back more than a decade ago talking to Mark Hall, the creator of Monster, and saying, How do we know this isn't really going to be a fad? And mind you, by then, we were six or eight years into the thing. and the told me, kind of off the record at the time, it certainly wasn't a view that any of them would care to have publicly expressed. But he said, hey, CSDs had a century-long run. We're the new CSDs, with a twist. And why wouldn't we be entitled to get a century out of it? And, you know, I look back at what he said and I go, man, dead on. You know, they've kind of reinvented CSDs. They're not really that much different. And why shouldn't they, you know, get another decade or two out of it?
[00:24:15] Ray Latif: Yeah. I mean, how much of that do you think is tied to the sort of lifestyle aspect of what the three core brands represent? I mean, Red Bull, Monster and Rockstar aren't necessarily about with liquid. In some cases, they're marketing to something else, to a lifestyle.
[00:24:27] John Craven: Yeah, yeah, just brilliant marketing. And again, you know, it's just as Arizona threw away the rule book when they launched as a team. Mind you, at the time I was at brand week, I spent all my time talking to ad agencies and design shops and the would all go, oh, look at these guys. They don't even have an ad agency. They do know above the line advertising. In five years, they won't have a brand. Right, here we are like 24 years later.
[00:24:51] Ray Latif: Multi-billion dollar category.
[00:24:53] John Craven: Yeah, I think they do have a brand. and the the energy guys, it was very much the same thing. I remember early days, you'd put on the X games on TV and all the signage was Mountain Dew, AMP and go, hey, those guys are gonna run away with it. and the go like, no, we don't do that crap. wear what they're drinking inside the tents. We've got our logos all over their helmets and jackets. That's gonna be way more meaningful to the consumer than what's obviously some paid presence there. And you look back and you go, man, they pretty much reinvented it. And to this day, I mean, Red Bull, I saw a Red Bull TV and the other night, but paid advertising is really a negligible part of the mix of what's made those brands succeed.
[00:25:40] Ray Latif: Now, I just want to stay on the carbonation front real quick, and I know you're running out of time, and you're a very busy man, and I appreciate your time being with us, but you had a great column a couple of magazines ago about fizz and carbonation, and how carbonation is certainly the least thing that's dead when it comes to, or the least thing that's slowing down when it comes to carbonated soft drinks. Everybody seems to want to create a sparkling beverage. Can you kind of expound on what your column was about and why you wrote it?
[00:26:07] John Craven: Yeah. Okay. Well, it's kind of amazing. You know, everybody thinks that they want to eat and drink better. By now, most people know what they should be doing. They should be getting away from, you know, sugared beverages with no nutritional value. And yet it's very hard. You know, people like things that are sweet. They're, you know, they're used to getting certain rewards. So it's very hard to go from that to let's say, you know, an unsweetened, even if it's a flavored water, and feel that your palate is getting an added reward. Well, guess what? Give them bubbles and suddenly you're giving them an added reward. And it's making that transition a little bit easier to migrate from CSDs to some of these newer categories. So it is fascinating that now we're seeing probiotics that are sparkling and coconut waters that are sparkling teas that are sparkling. And, you know, I think it's a great trend because I think it gets people moving in the right direction and, you know, call it training wheels, if you will. and the maybe at some point they can drink a real unsweetened tea, you know, a great brand like Heart of Tea and not feel like they're really missing anything.
[00:27:13] Ray Latif: Great. Well, what are your thoughts on a refrigerator? What are your thoughts on, you know, with these beverages? What's new? What's happening in the refrigerator, Jerry?
[00:27:19] John Craven: So it's funny when, you know, when I said at the beginning that I think beverages have gotten way interesting these days and in many ways more interesting even than deer, a subject that is near and dear to my heart. And one of the things I'm thinking of is how all these refrigerated categories have sort of come out of the blue in terms of cold-pressed juices, kombuchas, cold-brewed coffees, all these dairy alternatives. you know, to me, this is kind of like a almost epical moment in beverages because, you know, we basically have a distribution system that's been set up for, you know, shelf stable ambient beverages like, you know, hot and cold filled sodas and iced teas. And now we have this, you know, this avalanche of fascinating new brands that tie into all kinds of consumer trends. And it's leaving a lot of people at a very kind of exposed position in that, you know, if you're a distributor and you don't do refrigerated, well, do you start doing that now? That's like a major investment. It's a major change in the way you do business. And we don't really know yet which, if any of those categories is going to truly scale, you know, in terms of production and pricing and, you know, just how broadly they'll be embraced, whether the big conventional grocers will really stick with those experiments they're making. We don't know that. We think there's a lot of reason to believe that they will, or some of them will, But we don't know that for sure. And yet you have this like massive multi-billion dollar infrastructure that's kind of at a crossroads. So to me, I think that's going to be one of the big, big issues that's going to play out in the next few years.
[00:28:59] Ray Latif: That's a really interesting point. I mean, do you foresee a Coke or a Pepsi building out a massive distribution system that's based on refrigeration?
[00:29:07] John Craven: It's interesting, you know, Coke inherited the refrigerated system that Odwalla had built, ditto for Pepsi with Naked. Coke has really been winding down great portions of the Odwalla system, selling them off, routes off to ice cream guys and whatnot. And I'm sure there's some second thoughts that have, you know, arisen, particularly at a time that Coke is, you know, basically rethinking all its distribution anyway. On the other hand, you can look at a highly adept operator like Honeckman, and one of their top executives, Bob Brockway, has been out there on a stump basically saying, we're going to have to have refrigeration. We're going to have to be able to accommodate 1,000 or 2,000 SKUs. That's all and the corner, and we're already making experiments to try to figure out how to get that done. So yeah, the answer is, I think we're going to see some big changes.
[00:29:59] Ray Latif: Interesting. TBD, I guess, for right now.
[00:30:01] John Craven: Yeah. Order right about in the coming years.
[00:30:03] Ray Latif: Yes. Jerry, this has been tremendous. I don't think we've talked at length like this, you and I, and I feel like I'm- Not without a beer on the table.
[00:30:10] Jerry Karmoosh: Certainly not with microphones.
[00:30:11] Ray Latif: Not with a microphone, no. I learn a lot from you every single day, and I appreciate your being with us and your help in making me a better reporter as well.
[00:30:20] John Craven: So thank you very much. Okay, thank you. All right.
[00:30:22] Ray Latif: Thanks, Jerry. All right. Hope to see you soon. Thanks so much for listening to the WebNet podcast. And if you have any questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, send them to podcasts at webnet.com. See you soon.
