[00:00:00] Kombucha Brewers: Hey, BevNET podcast listeners, Jon Landis here with a quick public service announcement about the 2017 Natural Products Expo West that's taking place in Anaheim on March 9th through 12th. This is arguably one of the most important and definitely the largest industry trade shows, and we'll be there in force to cover the show. but with over 1,000 food and beverage booths on our list to cover, we need your help, especially if you're exhibiting at the show. Specifically, if you have any New York new products that you're going to share at Expo West, please let us know in advance. This will greatly help our editorial team, and it will definitely increase the chances of your company being included in our coverage, either before or after the show. The process is really quite simple. You can send any and all Expo West related news to news at BevNET.com. If you're launching something new and would like to send samples of your new products to our office in advance of the show, that's even better. If there's anything else we can do to help, feel free to email me directly at jlandis at BevNET.com. We're looking forward to seeing all of you in Anaheim. Thanks and onto the show.
[00:01:14] Ray Latif: Hey, thanks for listening to the BevNET podcast. I'm Ray Latif. I'm here with John Craven and Jon Landis. This is episode 45 of the BevNET podcast. And this is the February 17th edition. We're here in Watertown, Massachusetts, recording live from the conference room. For those of you new to the BevNET podcast, this is a weekly podcast that explores current trends in news from the food and beverage industries. It features discussions with the BevNET team, as well as interviews with founders, industry experts, and other interesting folks. All right, Ray, so what do we have on tap for this episode? It's a riveting episode, John. Aren't they all? They really are. Rosie the Riveter? Rosie the Riveter, yes. You know, as part of our New York trip from a couple of weeks ago, we visited with Jerry Reda, who's the chief operating officer of Big Geyser, and talked to him about, well, everything Jerry Reda and Big Geyser. You know, a great conversation about the market for beverage distribution in New York City.
[00:02:06] Kombucha Brewers: Big Geyser is like... They're the leading independent distributor in New York, correct?
[00:02:11] Ray Latif: They're the largest independent distributor in Metro New York and one of the largest in the country. I think probably number one or two. We also have a conversation with Martín Caballero, who is the senior staff reporter at BevNET, who just recently came back from KombuchaCon, which is a convention that covers the category of kombucha. Some really interesting stuff from that.
[00:02:31] Kombucha Brewers: That's hosted by Kombucha Brewers International, the trade association that does lobbying for kombucha producers.
[00:02:39] Ray Latif: Correct. And then finally, we have a chat between Jon Landis and Justin Kendall, who's the assistant editor of Brewbound, our craft beer site, a BebNest sister site. And they're going to be talking about what's going on with tap rooms in the U.S. And I'm sure that's going to be a really interesting conversation as well. We have another interesting folk here. Is there a singular word? Folk. Is it folk? I'm a one-man folk, I think. Okay, he's a one-man folk, and he is Martín Caballero, the senior staff reporter for BevNET. Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for inviting me, guys. That was kind of a formal intro. I don't know if it's really thank you for joining us. It's thank you to be here, party with Artie. Thank you to be here, party with Artie. There you go. I mean, we also forced them to be here, so I don't know. I would just repeat what Landis says these days. All right. Just trying to keep my job here. Good strategy. Well done. Marty just got back from Long Beach, California, where KombuchaCon 2017 was recently held. KombuchaCon is a conference for those who can't really get the sort of naming of this event. It's an industry event for those who produce kombucha and those folks that are interested in that category. Marty, how many folks were there and what was the kind of vibe and gist of the event?
[00:03:59] John Craven: Well, it was about 350 attendees, which was up from last year, I think up around 40%. Not totally sure on that, but it was definitely an increase from last year. It was a really great vibe. I think people who are familiar with the kombucha community know that it's pretty close-knit. There's a lot of feeling of sort of, at least there in the room, there was a lot of sort of mutual support and sort of a feeling of moving forward as an industry, which I know is something that is sort of one of the ideas behind the kombucha con in general. So it was about a two day event. There was obviously a speaker program. There was a portion that was members only and sort of a, you know, for them to update and work out, you know, their next year of sort of their approach to to building the industry as a whole. And then there was obviously a ton of kombucha. There was the world's largest Kombucha Brewers, at least according to them, and lots of great products on display. And yeah, it was it was really nice. It was a really, really great two day event.
[00:04:55] Ray Latif: So, you know, you drank so much kombucha at this point, you have a mother growing inside your stomach right now, right? Kind of, yeah.
[00:05:01] John Craven: I'm a little concerned, but, you know, I should be okay.
[00:05:03] Ray Latif: Check in with me in a couple days. Hey, probiotics, that's a hot trend. You wanna, you know, you're living it, literally.
[00:05:08] John Craven: I'm literally on trend right now.
[00:05:13] Ray Latif: Well done. So, you know, you wrote a couple stories, you wrote a recap, you got another story, a couple more stories coming out this week about some of the pertinent things that are going on within that category and some of the things that were talked about at the convention. What are some of the things that really stood out for you? And give some of our listeners a hint of what's to come on the site.
[00:05:33] John Craven: Sure. Well, obviously in the speaker program, they had various different speakers addressing various different topics in the industry. One that I thought was pretty interesting was sort of a look at the numbers behind the industry. I mean, everyone sort of agrees this is a growing category. The projections are very strong for the future, but actually getting to see some of the numbers behind that, courtesy of Spins, was really interesting. There's $399 million in sales for kombucha and fermented drinks in 52 weeks ending in December 25th. And the growth rate is about 32%. So definitely some solid growth there. But really interesting, I think, is that the sales in multi-outlet and the convenience stores are more than twice that of the natural channel. So we're starting to see Kombucha really, I mean, obviously, natural channels where it's been growing, but now it's finally moving into multi-outlets, C-stores. As we've seen the trend going a little bit against sugary drinks and carbonated soda, this is obviously a good opportunity for kombucha to get in there, and especially with the C-Stores. Distribution seems to really be driving the growth there. It's getting into more places, and that's what's really growing the category. Pretty interesting to see. Obviously, you know, the big brands, GTs, is still the leader in both of those categories. Although it has maybe slipped a little bit, but we're definitely seeing some brands like HealthAid, Hum, Clearly Kombucha Brewers moving up and really doing well. Another thing that was interesting from the presentation was Kombucha Brewers, which is, it had sales growing of 44%. So this is obviously fully upfront alcoholic Kombucha. It's usually around between 7 and 10%.
[00:07:09] Ray Latif: So to separate, I mean, this is, it's Kombucha Brewers versus higher alcohol kombucha, say like a 4% alcohol kombucha. This is a beer that's blended with kombucha?
[00:07:20] John Craven: It's sort of like fermented tea beer is how Boochcraft, which is one of the brands sort of positions themselves, or I'm sorry, that was Luna Kombucha. But yeah, it's about alcohol level, about five to 9%, not malted as far as I know. That was something that was pretty interesting as well. Kombucha Brewers is certainly not, at the same level as non-alcoholic or regular kombucha, I should say. But it seems to be a growing category, and there's some interest in that as well. So seeing those numbers was certainly something interesting. Getting to see brands from a lot of different regions was also interesting as well. I think people are pretty familiar with kombucha's presence in the Pacific Northwest, in the West Coast, a lot of big brands out there. But we're starting to see some interesting movement in different regions. Had a really good conversation with a brand called Up Dog, which I hopefully will be writing about in the future, What's UpDog? Oh, I get it. I gotcha. Well, it's cool because actually UpDog is, besides that really clever joke, is yoga, sort of a yoga reference. There were two Wake Forest students started this brand in the hotel room. Their hotel room? I'm sorry, dorm room.
[00:08:26] Ray Latif: Long trip.
[00:08:29] John Craven: But yeah, anyway, they started taking orders via Instagram, sort of building their clientele out of other students who were interested in yoga. They named all their flavors off yoga poses. They're in North Carolina. I saw some other brands from Arkansas, Atlanta.
[00:08:45] Ray Latif: Sounds like the Southeast is a hotbed of activity for that category.
[00:08:49] John Craven: Going back to the spins data, that's actually the smallest market geographically compared to all the other markets there. But it still seems like an area where there's been a lot of growth. And that's where I think With the craft brewing presence, craft beer brewing presence that's in North Carolina already, there's been some cool associations and sort of kind of that mutual community support that I think is evident across Kombucha.
[00:09:15] Ray Latif: Nice, nice. Now, I know you've got a lot of work to do for the rest of the day and week and month and year. Sure. This never stops here. But I did want to ask you about some of the issues facing kombucha producers. Over the past year, we've written about, you know, alcohol concerns, sugar concerns. You know, what really kind of came out of the conference in terms of sort of a solidarity or sort of unifying element on how to tackle these issues as a category?
[00:09:40] John Craven: Well, I think that's a great question. I know that in terms of the organization, KBI is working.
[00:09:47] Ray Latif: Kombucha Brewers International, which put on Kombucha Con.
[00:09:49] John Craven: Yes, exactly. They are engaged in some serious lobbying efforts to try to introduce some legislation that will sort of separate kombucha from being sort of categorized with other alcoholic beverages, you know, beers and things like that. That's a major issue in terms of regulation and sort of making sure that they're not associated with that. So that's been a major effort. I know that they've, in 2016, they went to Capitol Hill and met with congressional aides and leaders and stuff like that. So that's an ongoing effort. That's something that's going to be addressed again later on this year. Also, another thing, someone obviously familiar with our side, with BevNET, Justin Prochnow, gave a very interesting presentation about the new FDA label changes, which is something that we've been talking about for a while. It's going to be two years until they're fully implemented across the board. But that is something that is going to have implications on the kombucha industry. And that's more of a sort of be prepared and get ready for how this will affect your product type of situation. So there's going to be a change in serving size important for them as well as the recognition of added sugars that may complicate things. It's supposed to be how much sugar is added at the beginning of the fermentation process.
[00:11:06] Kombucha Brewers: which might be different from the amount of sugar in the product that the consumer is drinking.
[00:11:10] John Craven: Exactly. So there's a lot of red tape in there, but basically the important thing that was communicated to the brewers there was document everything. Document everything because if you have clear documentation, then some exceptions can be granted in terms of discrepancies and things like that. You really just have to make sure that you're very thorough with your research and your numbers and stuff like that.
[00:11:35] Ray Latif: And if anything does stick out, you know, you can just buy a shredder, right? I mean, they have these industrial shredders where you can just, you know, get rid of that if you want.
[00:11:42] Jon Landis: That's a good tip. I don't think Justin Prochnow would endorse that tip.
[00:11:45] Ray Latif: No, Justin would definitely not endorse that tip, but he would absolutely endorse Marty's T-shirt. He's got Diego Maradona taking on the entire West German soccer team. Is that 86 or from 90? 82, and it's Belgium, sorry. Oh my goodness, I was wrong in every single thing I said. Gotta take away your man you had for that. With the exception of Diego Maradona. Anyway, Marty, that was great stuff, and I really appreciate you going down there. LBC, you know, you missed all the winter weather here, but I know you busted your butt this past weekend, so thanks so much for that.
[00:12:16] John Craven: Great. Thanks for having me and thanks to KBI for having me as well. It was really great and look forward to following these brands in the future. It's really interesting stuff.
[00:12:23] Ray Latif: Solid. All right. Marty's leaving us to go write so many stories about kombucha. Stay tuned. Probably drink some kombucha too. Probably drink. I don't know. I think he's probably had his fill of kombucha for a while. Yeah. Let's move on to the segment with Jerry Reda. You want to cue this up, John?
[00:12:37] Jon Landis: Yeah, well, we in this one, as Ray mentioned earlier, you know, this is from our trip to New York that we recently took. We sat down with Jerry Reda. We also brought in our our dear colleague, Barry Nathanson. How could I forget? Yeah. How could you forget? You know, basically, we had a great conversation with them talking about the New York market. some of the, I guess, inner workings of Jerry, who I love. You know, he's a very calculated person in terms of what he says, and someone who, you know, as far as distributors go, is very candid also, which is great.
[00:13:12] Ray Latif: So, really great chat. Finger on the pulse for any of you looking to do business in New York City, and I can't imagine why you wouldn't. Stay tuned. All right, here we are in Manhattan at the office of Barry Nathanson. For those of you who don't know Barry Nathanson, you're probably hiding under a rock and have been for your entire life. Barry Nathanson is the publisher of BevNET magazine and has been a longtime beverage industry observer for about 25 years. And we are proud and honored to be joined by Jerry Reda, who is the chief operating officer of Big Geyser, the largest independent distributor of beverages and other things and snacks as well in New York City. So thank you guys so much for having us and thanks for being with us. No, it's great to be here. Thank you.
[00:13:52] John Craven: We always like to welcome someone to my humble home. And it's always great to see Jerry, who I see with frequency, you know, us being two New York boys.
[00:14:00] Ray Latif: Yeah. You guys are the New York's finest, as it were, not necessarily in the police sense, but in terms of the beverage industry and your depth of knowledge in this field. And I kind of wanted to get into that. I wanted to get into like how you got into this business and how you got to know so much and how you got to be the kind of guys that you are. Jerry, let's start with you. How did you get into beverages?
[00:14:18] Martín Caballero: It's a very good question. It happened about 23 years ago. My family had been in, my brothers and I had been in the children's amusement business, coin operated. amusement rides and vending equipment. And I basically wanted to pull away from the family business, so to speak, and did that. And I got into my own beverage distribution company. Started a small company with a handful of trucks distributing Jones Soda and several other brands on Long Island in a small area. And ran that as a standalone company for a few years. Never made any money. Loved the business. thought that Jones Soda was an interesting brand at the time. I thought Peter Van Stoke and Jennifer Q were very, very interesting people. Still are. Still are. And I still have the tremendous amount of respect for both of them. And it was an interesting way for me to get engaged in the business. And I got the bug. I fell in love with it. Met Lewis Hershkowitz a few years ago after starting the business and had some dialogue with them. They ultimately, Big Geyser, purchased my small company and that's how I started in the beverage business. And so how long have you been with Big Geyser? Going into my 18th year. Wow, very cool.
[00:15:40] Ray Latif: Very cool. And it's still going strong. It's been a real evolution for the company and for the New York City market, for the beverage industry in general too. I mean, so many changes in terms of health and wellness, the decline of soda, sort of these new age beverage brands, you know, I don't even, I don't think they use the term new age anymore. It's just, these are the new Turks, the young Turks of beverage at this point. But from your perspective, what has really been the driving force, the biggest change in your 18 years in the business? And with Big Eyes, excuse me.
[00:16:08] Martín Caballero: First, that's a great question. The biggest change is the product line and the people. Probably the biggest change that we've had over the last few years is selling back the Glasso portfolio to the Coca-Cola company. That was a tough decision to make. And we asked the Coca-Cola company to purchase the brand back from us. And we have a huge amount of respect for them. But we were selling product that we would sell for $2.50 a bottle, $2 a bottle. And then we started to see it going in a different direction. And we respect the direction that they were going. But they started to commoditize the product. You know, they were going for $0.69 price point, $0.89 price point, $0.99 price point. And we saw our profits erode. And we felt that we needed to go in a different direction for the long-term viability of the brand and our company.
[00:17:04] John Craven: When they first bought it, Coke, their first edict was the 10 for 10s, which was, to me, the death knell of the brand. They had built up, in New York and everywhere, the most extraordinary, high-end brand. And in one edict and one decision, they determined that the way to do it is make it a commodity, as Jerry just said. And the first thing were the 10 for 10s. I don't think the Brad Avery recovered from that.
[00:17:31] Martín Caballero: Well, to Barry's point, we were selling product throughout Manhattan, on Long Island, in our trading area. The average price for a 20 ounce bottle of vitamin water was anywhere from $2.50 to $3 a bottle.
[00:17:46] Ray Latif: Yeah, and so the premium pricing is really what you guys are going after, that sort of premium branding as well. And it sounds like vitamin water didn't really fit the bill anymore for you guys.
[00:17:58] Martín Caballero: Well, as I said, they were going in a different direction. They spent a lot of money for the brand. We'll always be grateful for how the brand helped our company grow. We have a tremendous amount of respect for where the brand is today. But we also think there are different options today and better options today. If you look at Smartwater and you look at Vitaminwater, I can't say anything negative about them. They were members of our family. But that's a 20-year-old technology, or a 25-year-old technology, or a 20- or a 25-year-old brand, any way you look at it. And when you talk to customers about that and you say, look at Fiji, look at Evian, look at Volvic, look at Voss, Look at all of those brands in smart water and look how old they are. Then you look at the essentials of the world. You look at the core waters of the world, the body armor waters of the world. Another new water that's coming out called Rethink in a Tetra Pak. you look at the direction of pH waters or sport waters and where the industry is going, it's very different from where it was. And I'm very, very bullish and we're very bullish on the attributes of pH neutral and high pH water. So are you very bullish on bottled water in general? We are extremely bullish on bottled water in general. And it just keeps growing and growing. And there's brands in our portfolio that are growing at triple digits off a pretty strong base. But what's interesting is we've only had Essentia and Core, which are two of our strongest growing brands in our portfolio, a short period of time. But I have never experienced such growth in a short period of time with these brands. Now, that was accelerated because of the fact that we put a lot of focus after we sold off Smartwater, but To see the growth of these brands, it's nothing like we've ever seen, and I think we're only scratching the surface.
[00:20:02] John Craven: And when you live in New York and you walk around the streets and go to the bodegas and the Whole Foods and all that, you see this plethora of extraordinarily exciting brands, of which Jerry luckily carries most of them, and the marketplace embraces it. I do store checks every day I walk into a store, and I watch people shop. The variety, the selection, and the excitement of it, it's palpable. People look and say, wow, look at this, look at that. I'll start talking to them and say, let me tell you some of the attributes of these brands. But they love them. And one of the things about Geyser, look, I'm a lifelong New York, and I've been in the beverage industry 25 years now. From day one, the name that I always heard in New York market Big Geyser. I mean, unequivocally, they are the mother load, the flagship. They are the most innovative, creative distributors in New York. They have the clout, the strength and the depth, you know, to make a brand successful.
[00:21:01] Ray Latif: Well, I think the phrase you used before we started was, as Geyser moves, so does New York. Yes. And it's interesting, you're an independent distributor, as I mentioned in the beginning, which is pretty tough. I mean, it's pretty tough to maintain independence in this kind of market when you're moving the kind of volume that you're moving. How have you been able to maintain that strong independent focus aside from what the strategics are doing?
[00:21:23] Martín Caballero: That's a very good question. I think the most important factor of our business model moving forward has been our ability to be agile, to be able to move quickly, to be able to pivot where it takes some of the larger companies. quite a bit of time to make a decision. And we make decisions very quickly. And the Hershkowitz family, Lewis and Stephen's father, who started our company, Mr. H, he lost money for a lot of years building Big Geyser, many, many years. And many people don't have that type of fortitude or that stomach to lose money for so many years. for the first 10, 12 years that the company was in business. We're going into our 31st year. The company lost money. How many companies can really sustain that? And every dollar that was generated, he kept investing more money and kept investing more money. And now we're at a point where, like the Frank Sinatra song says, if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere. And we have to differentiate ourselves by our knowledge. what I call our intimate knowledge of the New York market. People come and people go. There may be a new head of this distributing company in New York, a head of this distributing company in New York, or that one. They come in for a year, come in for a couple of years. They get promoted. They move to a different division. And I don't want to say anything negative about anyone, but we have a strong intimate knowledge of the marketplace. We build relationships. And that's very, very important, building relationships with the retailers that we service, and being able to be there for them seven days a week, 24 hours a day. And we get calls on Sunday night, and we get calls on Monday night, and Saturday morning, and Sunday afternoon, and Sunday morning, because there's so much retail volume that's done on the weekends. And this is truly the city that never sleeps. We have to be there and we have to respond to the needs of our customer, but it's not about me. It's about the team that we've put together and the team that the Hershkowitz family has allowed us to put together. Lewis and Steven have continually given us the resources and given me personally the resources to develop a team that I believe is second to none. It's not about me. It's not about Big Geyser, it's about the team and about the brands. And just, you know, I'm just a part of it. It's very humbling and it's very enjoyable and I love what I do. And I have friends who are doctors and friends who are accountants and friends who do many, many different things. But I honestly wake up every single day and I love what I do.
[00:24:09] Ray Latif: That's a blessing for sure, because not a lot of people are afforded that kind of peace in life to wake up and say, I'm going to walk into work and be very, very happy. I know I am, you know, coming into work for better and every morning. Good to know, right? Yeah, good to know. As John Craven says to my left.
[00:24:25] John Craven: Also, the thing about Geyser, having been in New York, is they are so brutally Honest Tea straightforward. When a brand comes in, every brand calls me up and says, Barry, can you introduce me to Geyser? Can I get into Geyser? And I say, they are very discerning in what they take, and they will tell you, we are not the right distributor for you. They never jerk people around. They always take brands that they truly believe in. And they're very honest. People say, we're not the distributor for you. There are others who might service you better. We can't give you the time and attention. Because they do give attention to their brands. I know every brand owner that they deal with.
[00:25:01] Martín Caballero: Now, Barry, that's well said. When you say jerk people around, that's very well said. I haven't thought of it that way. But it's true. You want to treat people Listen, what I do every day with our employees and many of our suppliers is not easy. And I'm characterized very, very difficultly sometimes. And people have choice words because I have to tell them no. I have to debate with them directions that they want to go with a brand that hasn't sold one bottle. And I have to tell people no. And we have to tell people no. And we also have to have healthy debates with existing brands that are in our portfolio, because there's only an infinite amount of selling hours on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis. And we have to focus our efforts on where we're going to get the best possible return on our investment. And we're very selective to your point because we don't want to disrespect any of the brands in our portfolio by over-duplicating what is already in our portfolio.
[00:26:06] Ray Latif: There are a lot of products that are not necessarily in your portfolio at this point, a lot of emerging categories. Barry, you know, you are in the streets every day, not in the streets per se, but you know, walking around the streets every day, walking in the stores, I'm sure you see the expansion of refrigerated space that retailers, more coolers available to carry more refrigerated products. At this point, Big Geyser doesn't have a refrigerated division. Do you see that as something that you're planning on developing? Do you see it as sort of a weakness of the company at this point, sort of not being able to carry some of the brands that are as innovative and as merging as some of them are at this point?
[00:26:40] Martín Caballero: I think it's a great question and we're often asked why don't we carry this refrigerated product. We've had refrigerated brands say to us we will buy a fleet of trucks for you, we will buy a refrigerated box for you, we want to leverage your knowledge, we want to leverage your relationships, we want to leverage your sales system. But One thing that's been so true and near and dear to our hearts has been staying focused on what we do best. We're growing. We're a profitable company that has no debt. We try not to jerk people around. I don't think we do, but I'm sure some people think we may. We pay our bills. We have no debt. We're financially stable. When you tell people the truth and you don't tell people what they want to hear all the time, then they may think you're jerking them around a little bit. We tell people the truth. And that's what we try to do. And our business continues to grow. We had a great 2016. We had a very, very strong January 2017 coming out of the gate. So we look at our portfolio and we say to ourselves, here's where we're at. We have a tremendous amount of runway with our existing brands. We don't want to bite off too much that we can chew. Now, if we got into refrigeration, it's something that we've spoken about, but right now there's such tremendous upside potential with the brands that we have in our portfolio and the handful of brands that we will be launching in the near future that are non-refrigerated, ambient-based products. So until we exhaust those efforts, I don't think there's any reason for us to go into that refrigerated realm right now. And it may change. I mean, you hear a lot about UV lighted product that's being used. I don't know the technology very well, but instead of HPP, some of the UV ultraviolet light purification processes that, you know, may create some more ambient opportunities down the road where maybe HPP refrigerated product may come and have the ability to go on ambient trucks.
[00:28:48] Ray Latif: Yeah. I mean, it sounds like you're interested in carrying some of the more super premium juices that have popped up in the last five years. I know you guys just brought on a kombucha brand, a shelf-stable kombucha brand that puts you in that emerging category as well. But what's your take on some of the other emerging categories that are coming up and ones that you're interested in at Big Geyser?
[00:29:05] Martín Caballero: Well, we like anything that consumers will ultimately want to consume large quantities of. I mean, we're not afraid to get involved in a brand at a junior level, let's say, or at an infantile level, but we have to feel that the brand has upside potential. That's very, very important to us on every level. It has to have upside potential. And we get hundreds and hundreds of brands that are sent to us on a yearly basis. We love the water category. You walk into a bar, we were in a restaurant last night with some business associates, and you look at the bar and you look at the amount of vodkas that are up on a bar. And then you look at the water category, and you say, okay, here's a mineral water, here's a high pH water, here's a pH neutral water, here's a pH, you know, low water, here's a sport water. I mean, it seems to be an entire different spectrum of water offerings. And then you have the commodity waters. the Poland Springs of the world, the Deer Park, you know, the Nestle portfolio. The Shawnees, Acrofitas. Absolutely. And then all the private label that Niagara is probably behind. But you see the growth and you see the opportunity in the premium waters. I mean, I got home the other night. I mean, I could show you this on my phone. I mean, I have my daughter who loves this business. She works as an intern at Body Armor. But she's at my kitchen table. She's playing with pH drops, testing all of the waters. Okay, she's got them all on my kitchen table. And I mean, I bought these drops on Amazon. She opens up my mail, takes the drops, and I'm like, we have a chemistry project. I mean, I could show you these pictures on my phone. It's priceless. I was showing them to Lewis last night. It's hysterical.
[00:30:53] Ray Latif: We'll have to copy those and put them on the site so that the listeners can see them as well.
[00:30:57] Martín Caballero: Absolutely. Here you go, right there. Look at that.
[00:30:59] Ray Latif: Oh yeah, you got some sport, some of the body armor, super water. You got the core.
[00:31:03] Martín Caballero: There we go. We got ascension. We have core. She's got tap water. I mean, she's just all over the map.
[00:31:08] Ray Latif: Well, so she's an intern at BodyArmor, huh? She is. So it's, you know, I was gonna ask you about relationships. You guys have created a lot of great relationships. Barry, you have, you know, a legendary list of relationships here in the beverage industry. And how have you guys been able to kind of maintain those relationships? What have been some of the most endearing ones and why?
[00:31:29] John Craven: My attitude towards relationships is, Once I become a friend of a person, I judge them just for who they are, not what their reputation is in the marketplace. It's the one-to-one with me. You mentioned Peter Van Stalk, Don Voltaggio, who is obviously controversial. I love Don Voltaggio.
[00:31:46] Ray Latif: From Arizona, one of the founders.
[00:31:48] John Craven: From Arizona. Relationships are everything. Look, you guys know it as running the editorial of the magazine. There are many scoops and information that I get from my friends in the industry that the news will come out and you guys will call me and say, well, did you know about this? I said, yeah, I've known about it for a month. If someone gives you something, I never betray a trust. I never betray a friendship. I was saying to Jerry, I could count in my 25 years, maybe three people in this industry I don't like. I just told Jerry the story of one of them. I won't repeat it.
[00:32:22] Ray Latif: I didn't know that you were keeping things for a month from us, Barry. Come on now. I've known you for six years.
[00:32:28] John Craven: And Khmush calls me the same thing and says, well, did you hear about that? I said, yeah. Khmush is calling you? Good Lord. Wow. Tough crowd. It's all about the relationships one as Jerry said our love for this industry is extraordinary I know so many people who left the industry to go into other markets for whatever reason they left I'm still in touch with them and they still say the most fun part of my career was the beverage industry There's a passion and a fervor in this industry. That's unlike anything I've ever met in other industries and Everyone loves being there Also, they're all friends. Our BevNET Live is the epitome of it. There's 550 people attending, and 400 of them have worked together at different companies over the years. So when we go to our event, it's a love fest. It's an educational process. We have a great time. You guys work your butts off doing it, but it's a way for the industry to get together with the friends. I'm lucky that I know probably two-thirds of the attendees there, and I'm happy to see them, and they're happy to see me.
[00:33:30] Ray Latif: Barry's featured in a comic book, The Honesty Story, and he's prominently featured as- Page 127. Page 127, he even knows the page.
[00:33:39] Martín Caballero: I'll have to get you to sign my page 127 of Seth's and Barry's book.
[00:33:43] John Craven: And Seth gave me a copy of the book, and they wrote, to Barry, number one in our hearts and page 127 in our books. It's at my desk right now.
[00:33:52] Ray Latif: I think the caption in the, you're in there and the caption is, hey, why don't you guys spend money on an ad? Is something like that?
[00:33:58] Martín Caballero: Is that what it is? Yeah. You know, you said two things. You used two words that resonated a lot with me. You said trust in relationships. Sometimes people come in and they say, trust me. When somebody says that early on in a relationship, that always makes me concerned. Trust is something that, built over time as our relationships. And I've been happily married going on 27 years. And that's challenging in this business, because I work seven days a week, and I'm very, very committed. And my wife has done an amazing job raising my children and has really given me the ability to commit to this business 724. And I love it, and I love my family. But when you talk in terms of relationships, We have a lot of longstanding relationships with entrepreneurs in this business. And you have to be able to sit across the table to them and say to them that we agree or we disagree. And I think in general, nobody wants to hear that you disagree with them. But at the end of the day, I think people respect the truth. They may not always want to hear it, but they respect the truth. We had a pretty good history of brand building. And we had people say, oh, Vitamin Water is leaving your portfolio. Geyser's done. They talked about different distributors throughout the country that have lost major brands. I looked at it as almost a general manager of a sports team. And we have ownership, and let's say I'm the general manager of the sports team. And we talked about it, and it was a very difficult decision to say to the Coca-Cola company, please buy this brand back from us. And that was a difficult decision, but we knew in the back of our minds, you had a ball player, let's call Glasso, that was hitting 3-350, and he's starting to hit 275, starting to hit 260, still has some life left into him. And we knew we had a farm system with some great brands in it. We had Essentia. We knew that Lance was working on core. We knew Mike was working on body armor. Sparkling Ice, who just came into our portfolio. We had a lot of other brands that were looking to come into us and that we needed to just spend a little bit more attention on. We said, you know what, now's the time to do it. And you know, in a relatively short period of time, we've made up virtually all of the volume that we sold back to Coke with vitamin water and smart water.
[00:36:36] John Craven: Having watched Geyser and your expanding portfolio, what is the timeframe from when you, someone first approaches you and that you will actually talk with the brand because it makes sense. three months to get it onto the trucks, two months, six months. How does the process work?
[00:36:52] Martín Caballero: It depends. We've sold the very first bottle of a brand. And then we've had other brands, such as Nestle and Monster, that we've taken over existing brands and then taken them to new levels in the marketplace. It also depends how many times I get thrown out of Lewis's office. And I'm not joking around. We kid around about this. A few years ago, many years ago, We were the first DSD distributor of Muscle Milk. And we're still the only non-Pepsi-Cola distributor of Muscle Milk. And we have a great relationship with Hormel now. And we signed a long-term relationship with them. And they're just great people to work with. And I remember seeing the Muscle Milk brand, discussing it. Lewis like, oh, that's, no, no, no, I don't think so. So we have a healthy debate between myself and Lewis and his brother and our senior management team, and it's just about trying to eye categories. Hey, you know, what's going on the West Coast? What's going on internationally? What's going on sometimes in Canada? What's going on in all different markets of the country? You know, we spend a lot of time eyeing different markets. So there's no definitive answer to that question. If we're taking over distribution for an existing brand, we may need to move quickly, especially if they're approaching us with some contractual issues, similar to a store lease being up. Hey, listen, you know, they're vacating on this date. We need you to get in on this date. So you have to feel comfortable with the brand first and the people behind the brand. The people behind the brand are often more important than the brand. Sometimes we get people who come in, before they've sold the first bottle, they're talking about an exit strategy. Before they have any proof of concept, I mean, they see, OK, Vitamin Water was sold for $4.3 billion. Buy was sold for this. This brand was sold for that. They're chasing that, I won't even call it gold ring. I'll call it the platinum ring. That's not helping your confidence. It's not helping your confidence. But you look at, you know, guys like Lance Collins, guys like Mike Rapoli, who we've sat across the table with and we have healthy debates with, we've had colorful debates with, we'll have them now, we'll have them in the future. But we have the utmost of respect for them. It's similar to a marriage. I mean, you look at people like that who you enter into a business relationship with, you know, there's some days they know how to tweak you. They know how to say certain things that are going to aggravate you. And whether they think it's going to motivate you more, aggravate you more, whatever it is, it's the truth. And then you have different brands like Nestle, who we took over for 12 different dairies that were sold in the New York area. And we took that business over, and we quadrupled it in a few short years. And then you look at a brand like Monster, who never really was able to make a stronghold in the New York market. And we took the Brad Avery from Coca-Cola, and we took the Brad Avery from Anheuser-Busch. And I have the utmost of respect for their management team, from Rodney and Hilton and Mark Hall. You know, the people who I deal with mostly is, you know, Emily and John and their local team. I mean, they have just been great, great partners in realizing, you know, here you have this large multi-billion dollar company that's basically said, hey, we understand that New York is different than other markets. And, you know, we're really excited about the future with many of our brands.
[00:40:29] Ray Latif: New York is a very different market for sure. And I'm sure there have been as many amazing success stories, there have been some challenges as well. What have been some of the most challenging hiccups or stumbles in a relationship or supply relationship between Big Geyser and a company? And how have you been able to get past them? I guess I'm looking for war stories, quote unquote.
[00:40:53] Martín Caballero: War stories. And I never want to throw, I never want to throw anybody under the bus, especially when we're still doing business with them today, being honest with you. But you know, I guess quality control is, is really the biggest issue. You have to be able to stand behind your product. I remember that was Lewis's father's biggest issue, Mr. H. He was always about a high quality product and that's still our mantra today. You know, we don't want to sell the sizzle without the steak. There has to be substance behind the brand. We've had at different times, whether it was vitamin water, whether it's smart water, whether it was Nantucket Nectars. Before my time, I heard of a story with Mystic that we received some mystic tea in it at the time back in the Joe Umbach days, and I heard that the mystic tea came in carbonated. And it was never intended to come in carbonated. Did all the cases start exploding when you brought it in? you know, par for the cause. But just, you know, no, that's the way it was supposed to be. So quality control issues are probably some of the biggest challenges that we have. On the flip side of the coin, it's also meeting or exceeding the demanding requirements that we put on ourselves to meet the demanding requirements of the customers in the New York market area. You look at this market, it's very different. The cost of labor is higher. The cost of entry for a retailer to come into this market. The taxes are higher. The dollars per square foot for a rent basis is higher. Everything is higher in the New York market. Utility bills. Everything. Transportation costs. You know, you look at the footprint. You guys are up in Boston. Stop and Shop is our large ahold. They're our largest grocery store chain. You go up to Massachusetts, you see some monstrous stores. You go out to Long Island, and you go into different parts of the New York area, you'll see a stop and shop store that's 15,000, 20,000 square feet. That's far less of a footprint than a stop and shop that you'll see in New England, or a Shaw's, or a Market Basket. because they can't afford to put these giant stores in. So what that does is that puts more onus on us. Well, there's no room for backstock. Well, you have to service the stores more frequently. Well, there's only an infinite amount of delivery windows available on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. Our operations guys, hats off to them. There's a handful of people in your life that have never let you down. My family, the Hershkowitz family and our operations team, Carl Gaglio, John Rosato, and Nick Seppi. I mean, we have the best operations team in the country. I mean, I always talk about our sales team. I believe we have the best sales team in the country, but unequivocally, we have the best ops team in the country as well.
[00:43:50] John Craven: Because of New York, the sense of inventory and urgency, because the logistics of them driving around the city with thousands of other trucks vying for deliveries in every different venue, if they can't get it done and get it done right away, and these little stores, because he was saying the inventory, they don't have the luxury of storing inventory. Big Geyser cannot get that product to them, those shelves will be bare for a while. So the logistics of them going around the city, Day and night, dropping off the product, getting it in there, stocking it on the shelves. It's unlike any other city.
[00:44:25] Jon Landis: Well, what's the like, sheer number of accounts that you guys service?
[00:44:29] Martín Caballero: I mean, it must be... Okay, we service almost 25,000 accounts in the most densely populated area. in the country. And people often ask you, you know, why are you not in Florida? Why are you not in DC? Why are you not in Boston? We opened up our Westchester division when Cal Beverage decided to cease operations, which the anniversary happens to be tomorrow of nine years of us operating in Westchester. And then from Westchester, we opened up in Putnam County. And while there's still so much growth in this market, we're not going to overexpand. That's the same answer that I gave you as it relates to why we're not selling refrigerated product. We are growing significantly in this market. And quite candidly, we can't get enough good people to join our company. The best people that we have in our company are the people who start off on a junior level and promote from within. And I am so proud of the team that we have, because 95% of them, from our divisional vice presidents, to our merchandisers, to our sales team, to the various different layers of management, they are the heroes of Big Geyser. It's not about me. It's not about Lewis, it's about them. I mean, we're a part of the equation, but those are the people that motivate me every single day. We have hundreds of employees and just to see them grow. I mean, we have guys in our organization that you've seen grow from a merchandiser. to a salesperson, to an area sales manager, to a borough manager, to a zone manager. Now they're running a division. And it's just, it's so rewarding to see. I mean, when we get people who come from other, let's say, bigger companies without making any disparaging companies, larger companies than we, they don't normally thrive in our environment because they're much more 9 to 5. We're 724. We're pushing $7.24. I have conversations with our sales team morning, afternoon, night. We speak on the weekends. We speak at nights. We speak early in the morning. We're texting. We're emailing. It never stops, $7.24, whether we're on vacation, whether it's Christmas Day, Easter Day, Passover, whatever it is. We're going $7.24, $3.65 a year.
[00:46:51] John Craven: I can attest to that. Many years ago, my friends at Honest Tea brought me out for one of their rallies. They picked me up at 530 in the morning, which is not my time. And we were at Geyser at quarter to six in the morning. They had their rally. They had the breakfast of the team. The trucks were all loaded. I went out in the field, spent an entire day with Mike Pileone. Mikey from Honest Tea, that's right. By four o'clock, I was so exhausted and so drained, and they go back, they reconcile what was done for the day, they put in the orders for the next day, they start having the trucks loaded. I was in awe of their operation. I was also exhausted, but they're non-stop.
[00:47:31] Martín Caballero: That's the way we used to do business. One of the things that the Hershkowitz family and Lewis and Stephen have allowed us to do is invest heavily in technology. So many companies similar to our own want to take a lot of money off the table. We continue to invest year in and year out. We have no shareholders that we have to answer to. We're a privately held company. If we have to invest and make decisions quickly, we try to make wise decisions. But we're agile enough to make those decisions quickly. And we've invested a lot in technology, our handheld data collection devices. We're constantly looking to upgrade our delivery systems. And we constantly are upgrading both our order entry systems and our handheld delivery systems. And it's something that we'll continue to do now and moving forward.
[00:48:23] Ray Latif: All right. We're just about out of time, unfortunately. But Jerry, I wanted to kind of put you on the spot here, if I could.
[00:48:28] Martín Caballero: Uh-oh.
[00:48:28] Ray Latif: Yeah. It's kind of what I do.
[00:48:30] Martín Caballero: All right. It's not a question about Barry, is it?
[00:48:33] Ray Latif: Well, it's sort of a question about Barry. Well, no, not at all, actually. Barry actually looked like he was about to lose his lunch or something like that.
[00:48:41] John Craven: I have no skeletons in my closet.
[00:48:45] Ray Latif: If there was one brand that's not currently on the Big Geyser portfolio or part of the Big Geyser portfolio that you would like to have on the portfolio, what would it be?
[00:48:53] Martín Caballero: If there's one brand that's on the portfolio… That's not in the portfolio that you would love to have on the portfolio. That's a great question. It really is. It's something that I've never given a lot of thought to. You know, I'm very grateful. This is a terrible answer. I'm very grateful for what we have in our portfolio. I can't think of one right now. I mean, just give me a minute. Is there one that's out there? I'll answer it in a little bit of a twisted way. I wish that we could sell some of the creativity of the HPP brands in an ambient system. I like the taste, I like the brands. So for example, the way Nesquik took a refrigerated product, made it shelf stable, in their Anderson, Indiana plant, and we were able to sell it on our truck. I like some of the work that's being done with some of the HPP products.
[00:49:52] Ray Latif: All right, so for those HPP brands out there, if you can figure out some way to create an ambient shelf-stable product, you might just have the biggest distributor in New York driving your product all over the city.
[00:50:05] John Craven: But you have to screen it through me first. I'm Jerry's front man. Barry, you drink HPP juice?
[00:50:13] Ray Latif: Well, you know what? This has been so much fun. I love talking to you guys individually and together. This has been a really, really fun podcast. So thanks so much for being with us and good luck to you, Jerry and Barry. Good luck to you dealing with us crazy people back in Watertown.
[00:50:29] John Craven: I'm in New York and you're all up there. That's what keeps me safe.
[00:50:33] Martín Caballero: Thanks, Barry. Well, thank you for your time. It was very enjoyable. Thank you.
[00:50:36] Ray Latif: Thanks, Jerry. As I said, riveting. Wasn't that riveting? So riveting. Well done. All right, finally, we have the Jon Landis corner. Is that what we're calling it? Sure, why not? Okay, great. You want to cue this up, talk about what you and Justin are chatting about right now?
[00:50:52] Kombucha Brewers: Yeah, I mean, you know, in the craft beer space, tap rooms right now are unavoidable. One of the things that is important to note is The revenue that a lot of these breweries receive through their tap room is astronomical in comparison to their wholesale sales to distributors. We discussed a little bit about the laws that are preventing some brewers from doing it and some of the other advantages beyond just the money coming in from the tap rooms and why people are so hot on this topic right now. It's a 3D billboard.
[00:51:27] Ray Latif: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:51:28] Kombucha Brewers: All right, let's do it. In the past decade, hundreds, if not thousands, of entrepreneurs have launched new craft breweries. It's an incredibly competitive space, and efforts to differentiate business models have varied widely. That being said, there seems to be a convergence among both newer and established craft beer business models, the taproom. On paper, having a tap room seems to be a no-brainer. Breweries can sell their product at retail price, pint by pint, instead of at a wholesale price in bulk, which makes a huge difference in revenue at the end of the year. Yes, there are overhead costs, but for breweries who already have an established production facility, it's more of an annexation than a build-out, and many of the overhead costs are already in place. There's also the opportunity to serve the beer in the ideal manner, market directly to the consumer, and gain valuable feedback for their R&D teams. Joining me today to discuss the emerging importance of tap rooms is Justin Kendall, Assistant Editor at Brewbound.com. What's up, Justin? Just hanging out. Glad to have you here. Thanks, man. Let me start by asking you, do we have an idea roughly how much beer is being sold in the tap room?
[00:52:36] Jon Landis: Yeah, we do. The Brewers Association's chief economist, Bart Watson, has estimated that it's about 2.5 million barrels of beer that's being sold in tap rooms. And that number is actually probably a little low. He anticipates that we're probably at about 3 million barrels, and that number is going to increase through the years.
[00:52:59] Kombucha Brewers: And is that just on-site consumption in taprooms?
[00:53:02] Jon Landis: It might be a mix. He said that three million figure is probably going to include to-go cans, bottles, that sort of thing.
[00:53:10] Kombucha Brewers: Basically breweries, I mean, they're doing it for the retail price that they're getting for their beer. I mean, that's got to be the biggest allure, right?
[00:53:18] Jon Landis: They are going to get a lot more money selling directly to the consumer. So they can sell a barrel directly to the consumer for about $1,300 and they would get about $200 to $400 from that same barrel of beer selling through a wholesaler.
[00:53:36] Kombucha Brewers: So that's like what, three to four times the revenue.
[00:53:38] Jon Landis: Yeah. So it's, it's a substantial amount of money that they're going to recoup. And I mean, I was speaking with Chris Loring of Notch Brewery and he said that, you know, tap rooms are a great way of helping pay for the expansions of breweries and that sort of thing. So he says that, you know, selling a barrel directly to the consumer helps them pay back the brewery pretty quickly.
[00:54:02] Kombucha Brewers: You've been traveling around, you were in San Diego recently, you know, what are these tap rooms really all about?
[00:54:07] Jon Landis: That's, that's one of the things you're going to hear over and over from people is this is an opportunity to get their beer out in a proper way. They will always say quality, consistency, and freshness. You'll hear that over and over from them. So that's one advantage that they really see with this. And then there's a lot of R&D value. So you can go to a place like Al Smith or McKellar or, you know, St. Archer. That's what I did in San Diego. And you're going to see a lot of test beers. You're going to see a lot of things that you can't get on the market. And a lot of times those products, if they hit right, they'll end up in package somewhere down the line.
[00:54:47] Kombucha Brewers: I mean, it makes sense. I mean, the people who are visiting the tap room are probably their core consumer. The patches that they make on their pilot systems are very small and probably just, you know, a handful of kegs come out of it. So put them on the lines and see what the reception is. And instead of putting it out in restaurants and, you know, you don't know who the diners are that are going to order your beer there.
[00:55:08] Jon Landis: And that's totally what you see with like a local example here in Massachusetts is Jack's Abbey. The co-founder of that brewery, Sam Hendler, he said that their German Helles has become their number one seller. And that was a beer that they brewed only for their taproom. And now that beer accounts for 35 to 40% of their company's sales. That's an example of a beer that's really been a hit. that started out just in a taproom environment.
[00:55:38] Kombucha Brewers: Yeah, taproom breakout series. Yeah, that's pretty interesting. I wonder how much opportunity there is, if there's a ceiling for that kind of opportunity through taprooms. To my point earlier, where these are your target consumers, these are your core consumers, maybe they have a different taste of an idea of your brand that doesn't come across with the packaging or outside your region. So I wonder if there's a limit to how well that that can be played. Of course, something like a German Helles is a pretty universal type of a beer that people can understand. But I guess, you know, because tap rooms seem to be a way to get kind of like the kookier offerings out there too. And like, display your differentiation in your brewing methodology and stuff.
[00:56:24] Jon Landis: Oh, for sure. You're going to see a lot of experimentation, a lot of, I mean, a lot of people will put on like their barrel aged beers or their sour aged beers. And what's popular right now is a lot of like new England style, hazy IPAs that don't have the same sort of shelf life. So a lot of this is going to be driven by freshness. IPA is the number one style among craft beers. People want fresh. They want that fresh beer. The way to get it is straight out of the tanks.
[00:56:55] Kombucha Brewers: Absolutely. Before we wrap up, it's not all rainbows and unicorns with all this taproom sales. There are challenges to it. And depending on what state you're in, it could be legal challenges that just don't allow it at all. A lot of these laws seem to be pretty archaic. They were put in place after Prohibition was repealed in the 20s, but some of them still exist in that same form today, and it just doesn't make sense in the modern marketplace. I think, what are the last two states that don't allow direct consumer sales from breweries?
[00:57:27] Jon Landis: The last two states are Georgia and Mississippi. So you cannot go there and buy a pint of beer at a tasting room, or you can't go there and get a six-pack to go. It's been an issue where the wholesaler wants the beer, you know, the wholesaler wants their piece of the pie.
[00:57:45] Kombucha Brewers: Right.
[00:57:46] Jon Landis: Finally, those two states are in a position where the brewers have reached compromise with the wholesalers, where it looks like they're going to get these laws changed, where you can finally have direct sales to consumers in these last two states. Which, I mean, that's money that's been left on the table through these experiences. I spoke with Brad Avery of Avery Brewing in Boulder, Colorado, and he told me that, you know, they have millions and millions of dollars in sales through their tap room. And that's money that these two states aren't getting.
[00:58:23] Kombucha Brewers: Right. And so breweries might just up and leave and open somewhere else in a different state where they can get that. You know, if that money is going to be left on the table, that's, that's a, that's kind of a deal breaker for some people, it seems. Some have explored it. Yeah.
[00:58:37] Jon Landis: I mean, there are other breweries who are building tasting rooms in anticipation that this law is going to change. Interesting.
[00:58:46] Kombucha Brewers: And that kind of brings me to my last point is these tap rooms really are the heart of beer tourism, aren't they? The idea that, you know, you can go to any kind of city, see the local brewers, go to their facilities, take a tour and have a pint and take a six pack to go. And you can visit, you know, it's almost like going to wine country and visiting a bunch of wineries in the same way that you can now go to Chicago or New York or San Francisco or Portland or San Diego or Boulder or any of these cities and do their local beer tour and see all the facilities and enjoy their tap rooms and the different experiences that those breweries set up for you. You know, it seems Georgia and Mississippi are missing out on that right now, but is the tap room really the big driver of this beer tourism, do you think?
[00:59:34] Jon Landis: Oh, absolutely. I just made a trip to San Diego and part of that trip was visiting a handful of breweries. There are several that I went to that, you know, you can't get in the market that I live in. that's a definite draw for me is to be able to go try the beer, you know, try a flight and experience, get that full experience of what this brand is all about. You know, what's the culture of this beer? I visited St. Archer and McKellar and Ale Smith and Ballast Point and on and on. And even smaller breweries like Society and Pure Project where you just get a feel for what they're doing. You get that experience of, you know, enjoying the beer and possibly getting that to go six pack or a growler or whatever.
[01:00:21] Kombucha Brewers: How many were you able to see in a day? Not as many as I wanted to. Well, I guess after a couple, it probably slows you down a little bit, drinking all that beer. Lots of Uber. Lots of Uber. Yeah, definitely. I mean, that's also a game changer. I love this convergence on the tap room. I think that it gives power to some of the breweries and gives them more revenue. It gives them the ability to display their wares the way that it's meant to be. So I'm a big fan of it, and I really appreciate you stopping by here today and sitting down and helping me understand it a little bit more.
[01:00:54] Jon Landis: Thanks for having me, man.
[01:00:55] Kombucha Brewers: You got it.
[01:00:57] Ray Latif: All right, well, that brings us to the end of the podcast. Any last words? I don't know. That sounds kind of harsh. Am I walking off the plank? It's always a sad moment, you know? But there's always next week. We're going to be back here in seven days.
[01:01:09] Jon Landis: You're planning our big 50th episode too, right?
[01:01:13] Ray Latif: Yeah, that's in planning. We're planning on talking to Indra Nooyi, Muhtar Kent, and Larry Young. They're all going to join us here in the office. Great. That episode is coming out on April 1st, so please stay tuned. And yeah, that's going to be great.
[01:01:26] Jon Landis: Do we do an April Fool's episode?
[01:01:28] Ray Latif: I don't know, maybe. Or is every episode an April Fool's episode? Is April Fool's on a Friday?
[01:01:33] Kombucha Brewers: Geez, things I don't know.
[01:01:35] Ray Latif: Well, anyway, thanks so much for listening. If you have any questions, comments, concerns about the podcast, I don't know why you'd have any concerns because we're kind of awesome. Not really. Please send them to podcast at BevNET.com and stay tuned for episode 46 coming out next week.
[01:01:48] Jon Landis: Thanks.
