[00:00:10] Ray Latif: Hello, friends, and thanks for tuning in to Taste Radio, the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food or beverage. I'm Ray Latif, the editor and producer of Taste Radio, and with my co-host for this episode, John Craven, Jacqui Brugliera, and Mike Schneider. You okay over there? Yeah, John Craven recovering from a bit of Man Cold. I hope you're feeling better Man Cold man.
[00:00:34] John Craven: What? What does that mean?
[00:00:37] Jacqui Brugliera: What is that different than a woman being a big big baby laying on the couch? What your wife tells you when you're sick? Oh, I see okay. It's like kind of like rub some dirt on it get back to work Overreacting yeah, yeah, that's what we do
[00:00:51] Ray Latif: Garbage disposal you man, you know Well, hopefully it's It'll pass by the time you get on the plane to London because being ill on a plane is not fun I Hope so.
[00:01:07] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, I hope so as well going on a plane tomorrow Wait, what? Yeah, I'm going to LA tomorrow.
[00:01:12] Ray Latif: What? Are you a glutton for punishment over here? What's going on?
[00:01:15] Jacqui Brugliera: Why are you doing that? Just going to pick up a fresh loaf of bread at Giusta, and then just going to Welcome Back home. I honestly can't tell if you're being serious or not. Our colleague Adam Stern told me it was a good idea. Now I'm going to the Founderland event. Oh, the Founderland event.
[00:01:29] Ray Latif: Very cool. Very cool. So you're there for a couple of days, and then back in Boston? One night.
[00:01:34] John Craven: Jesus, man. Oh my goodness, your jet lag is going to be wild.
[00:01:38] Jacqui Brugliera: No, that's how you avoid jet lag. Well, so he thinks.
[00:01:42] Ray Latif: JetBlue, I guess they love you over at the JetBlue. So they tell me. Yeah. We've been saying this for weeks now. We are headed to London to the United Kingdom. We're headed there next week I'm flying out on the 13th Jackie and Mike slightly before London, Ontario Wait, that's not where we're going. No, we're Ontario Airport Yeah, you better you better fix your extra flight then and John and John is also flying on the 13th We're gonna be there for the entire week as we've mentioned And we're going to be attending an event called Cheers the Drink Summit by Bread and Jam on Tuesday, October 15th. We're going to be roaming the event from morning until the afternoon. Later that evening from 6 to 8 p.m., we'll be inviting folks to join us for a happy hour as hosted by the wonderful team at Lucky Saint and featuring live interviews with Dashwater co-founder Jack Scott. Jack. And Delicious. founder and CEO, Catherine Brickin. We're going to be talking about their respective paths to international markets, specifically the United States. I have some Lucky Saint here with me. They make a fantastic non-alcoholic beer. I haven't had this yet. Have you guys tried this? You haven't? I've had many of them. I'm going to break the table here. Are you really going to do that? I don't think I should do that. No, I'm definitely not going to do that. I'll have one later. I'll have one later. But anyway, I love this brand. That is a phenomenal product in your hands. They are doing quite well in the United Kingdom. I really hope they're going to be making their way to the United States soon. I'll be sitting down with the founders while I'm in the UK as well. Now on Wednesday, October 16th, we'll be back at it with an industry networking meetup held at the offices of TRIP in Notting Hill from 5 to 7 p.m. We'll be sitting down with TRIP founders Daniel Khoury and Olivia Ferdi and another one with Be Tomorrow Ventures investment principal Lexi Prosser. You don't want to miss that. because the Trip founders know how to scale a brand in the UK and are doing so quite well in the United States as well. And how about this? Beat Tomorrow Ventures invests in early stage brands and functional concepts. So if you want to talk to Lexi, if you want to learn from Daniel Olivia, that is the place to be once again. trip offices on Wednesday, October 16th from 5 to 7 p.m. We would love to see you at our events. Just head to Taste Radio.com slash London to let us know that you'll be coming. We have to plan the certain amount of food and drink that we'll be having there. So it's always helpful to let us know you're coming. It's totally free.
[00:04:21] Mike Schneider: Just so you know, it's totally free. When we go to London, people are surprised when we tell them this, but it's free. Yes, there is no cost. Sign up for both of them. It's free to enter, but you pay to leave.
[00:04:33] Ray Latif: That's totally free.
[00:04:34] Lucky Saint: Is there such a place?
[00:04:36] Ray Latif: What? Where it's free to enter, but you have to pay to leave? It's like holding them hostage.
[00:04:40] John Craven: Jail?
[00:04:41] Ray Latif: I think it's jail, right? Or blackmailing? Jail might be a good call there. Blackmail, yes. We're not blackmailing anyone. No one's going to jail. And no one's going to jail. Just show up. But as I mentioned, it would be great if you show up and having registered beforehand. Yes. That got weird. It did get weird. What's not weird, but what's really exciting and what's been one of the most talked about brands of the past few weeks is one called David. David is a new line or new brand of high protein bars launched by the co-founder of a little known brand called RX Bar. Yes. Peter Rahal. is behind this new brand called David. As I mentioned, a ton of hype behind this one. They have made no bones about the fact that they are trying to be the number one protein bar in the market. At this moment, they're completely direct to consumer. And it seems like, I don't know, everyone's got one of these in their hands lately. Anytime you go on LinkedIn, it seems like people are talking Eat David and munching on these bars. Each bar contains 28 grams of protein, 150 calories, and zero grams of sugar. They come in four flavor varieties, a chocolate chip cookie dough, a double fudge brownie, a blueberry pie, blueberry pie, and a cake batter.
[00:06:05] Jacqui Brugliera: This is the one you love right the cake batter. No can we try that one last?
[00:06:11] Ray Latif: John does not my cup of tea doesn't like the batter. He doesn't like Yes I have you have yeah, where'd you get them from you bought them all right? How about my sources stolen from your desk? Oh? That's right. You know what?
[00:06:29] Mike Schneider: They did send us some samples and I wonder. They sent us some samples and they were in the sampling area, so I sampled them.
[00:06:34] Ray Latif: Okay.
[00:06:34] Mike Schneider: Which one did you try? I tried the chocolate fudge. The chocolate fudge. No, sorry. The double fudge brownie? Double fudge brownie is the one I tried, yes. Do you remember how it was? Was it good? I remember it being excellent.
[00:06:46] Ray Latif: Can we get a piece? Well, this is the thing. Okay. Which one do you want to try? Let's try that one. Sure. This one? Okay. This is the thing. I think 28 grams of protein makes it seem like it's not going to taste great.
[00:06:55] John Craven: Yeah. I'm curious.
[00:06:57] Ray Latif: Yeah, they said they spent a ton of time working on this and specifically the flavor of this bar.
[00:07:03] John Craven: I feel like people like think of protein bars that are high protein and think like chalky, you know, protein powder.
[00:07:09] Ray Latif: This is supposedly, or supposed to be, the peak of protein content at the highest flavor profile that you could ask for in a protein bar. You know, one of the things they talk quite a bit about is the dollar-to-protein ratio. They compare the price of protein per gram, macros, and calories from protein to other brands, and they also compare it to boiled cod. They do this all on the website. And so the price per gram of protein in Eat David bar, I think it's like seven cents. That's pretty weird.
[00:07:43] John Craven: Yeah.
[00:07:44] Ray Latif: Boiled cod, you said? Boiled cod. Yeah. So I guess they're trying to get consumers who maybe didn't think about protein bars in the past. Think about Swapping out their boiled cod for you would think like chicken or steak seriously. Well. They've ruined my dinner plans. Thanks.
[00:08:00] John Craven: Well.
[00:08:00] Ray Latif: Yeah You just ate probably what was that seven grams of protein are you full?
[00:08:04] Mike Schneider: Yeah?
[00:08:05] Jacqui Brugliera: I mean these are tasty very tasty, but you can still taste that it's a protein bar Yeah, yeah, but I mean the bar for no pun intended protein bars sometimes is a little A little weird when it comes to flavor. It is.
[00:08:17] Mike Schneider: So this is one of the best there is in terms of just taste for a protein bar, but it's still a protein bar.
[00:08:24] Ray Latif: Yeah, it is. There has been... In a Twix package. Yeah. There has been a little bit of pushback on David because it is quite processed. It's a very heavily processed food that includes a ton of ingredients. Which is a pretty significant departure from what Peter did with RX-Bar. When you saw the front of pack and it had five ingredients, it had like, you know, three egg whites, two almonds, you know, five dates, what have you. What they seem to be after is a complete protein bar with nothing that can be looked at as unnecessary. Congratulations to Peter and his team on the launch of David. Also, congratulations to Jeff Popkin. Jeff Popkin is now The Newton CEO of Lemon Perfect. You might recall Jeff's name because he was the president, I believe, Vita Coco for some time. He is also a former Red Bull executive and was the CEO of Mast Jägermeister, or at least the U.S. chief executive of Mast Jägermeister. And he is now leading one of the fastest growing beverage brands on the market, Lemon Perfect. Excited to see what he's going to do with the leadership of that company. But we know he's an experienced operator and it'll be interesting to see if he can, you know, take what he's learned and experienced at places like Vitacoke and Red Bull and apply them to Lemon Perfect. But it seems like it's a pretty different market. than it was when he was leading those companies. We'll see.
[00:10:05] Mike Schneider: So at the San Diego meetup, you know, the industry is full of characters, right? So one of them for sure is the founder of Golden Tiger, our dear friend, Ajay Dhawan. a guy who has this Golden Tiger beverage, and the liquid is really good. With Taste really great. And he's a guy who's been a member of the BevNET community for years. And let's say he's just been incredibly persistent trying to pitch a science-first beverage with this product. Like, if you talk to him, the first thing he'll say is, Golden Tiger is the only beverage in the world with bioactive curcumin. Now, that is pretty hard for anybody to digest, you know, if you were to put that on the front of a bottle. Not literally. No, no, it's super easy. That's because it's bioavailable. Good work. And he would walk around talking about this paper that he discovered at the University of Oklahoma that stated that, you know, turmeric doesn't have any functional effect unless it's heated, which is what, you know, Curcumin, turmeric, people don't even know those are the same thing, and he would insist that if we published that on BevNET, it was going to, you know, just revolutionize the industry. And that Golden Tiger would become the next body armor. And one of the things we've learned over the years is that a lot of science on front of pack just doesn't sell. I mean, Celsius used to do it, as you know, and then they went away from it, and now their beverage is blown up. It was really cool to have Ajay come up to me at the event and say, Mike, we're taking your advice. And he introduced us to his daughter, Janavi, who's taking over as the designer for Golden Tiger. And they showed us the design for these cans that are focused on, you know, the fact that it's this great turmeric lemonade.
[00:11:45] Ray Latif: Yeah, I can attest that The Newton packaging is a significant upgrade over what they previously had.
[00:11:52] Mike Schneider: I mean, he was so into the science that he, at one point, he was telling us that he went to India and visited a guru on a mountain, whispered in his ear, and that guy told him the same, had him whisper in his ear, when, you know, curcumin was effective. He wanted to take Jeff and me and John there to meet him. He was really, really passionate that this idea was going to sell his product, but I think the fact that With Taste good, we've had a considerable amount of it. We know With Taste good just looking at this packaging. It's been like he's tried to put the whole University of Oklahoma document on the front of his packaging for a while there, and now he's moving into, okay, this is delicious turmeric lemonade. Couldn't be happier for him.
[00:12:30] Ray Latif: He's a good guy. He is, and excited to see his daughter take the reins. We met up with her at the San Diego meetup and recorded an on-the-spot interview with her that will be featured on the Instagrams and the TikToks. In the near future, so look out for that.
[00:12:48] Mike Schneider: He used to message me stuff like, Mike, what's this crypto shit you're talking about? That stuff's all, that's nothing. Talk about Kirkman, talk about Kirkman.
[00:12:57] Ray Latif: Yeah, remember those days? You guys were all obsessed with NFT's and crypto. Or you used to like have the end of your handle for social media as .eth. Yeah, just messing around. I think the lesson here is that... Did you own any of those gorilla things?
[00:13:14] Mike Schneider: Oh, the apes.
[00:13:16] Ray Latif: Some other got rich.
[00:13:17] Mike Schneider: Some other people got rich quick on that. But I think the lesson here is that, yes, you can sell with science, but it generally doesn't work front of pack as the first thing that you're trying to sell unless you're like maybe a supplement in a GNC. If you're trying to sell to the masses, start with the fact that you have a good tasting product. and then sell the science later. I think Golden Tiger's gonna try that now and wish them a lot of success. That stuff tastes good.
[00:13:46] Ray Latif: Well, I would recommend that everyone listen to the advice that Mike just gave about too much information on the front of can. And I'd also recommend that folks listen to similar advice offered by Ben Goodwin and David Lester, who are the co-founders of Olipop. As I have said on previous episodes, that was one of my favorite interviews and they just dropped so much gold in terms of lessons and experience and, you know, ways to scale your business. But one of the most poignant moments is when they had said, if the foundation of your ability to sell your product is tied to educating the consumer, you're pushing a rock uphill. So if you got to educate the consumer to sell your products and that is the foundation of your brand, it is going to be difficult. So really difficult, really difficult. I think that's what you're saying. I think that's what Ben Goodwin and David Lester are saying as well.
[00:14:47] Mike Schneider: Unfortunately, you know, turmeric tastes good and there were a lot of good turmeric products out there and people have sort of blazed the trail. So you know what you're going to get in a turmeric lemonade now. So go Golden Tiger. Turmeric. Turmeric. Not tumeric. Say it your way. I'll say it my way.
[00:15:02] Ray Latif: It's not T-U-M, it's T-U-R.
[00:15:04] Mike Schneider: I know, but nobody says the R. Except for you.
[00:15:08] Ray Latif: What was it? Temple turmeric? Didn't they misspell it?
[00:15:11] Mike Schneider: Turmeric, turmeric, turmeric. There's so many different ways to say it.
[00:15:14] Ray Latif: No, Jackie, do you remember this? Temple turmeric? Yeah, I do remember that. Let's just start saying curcumin. They misspelled it? No, they misspelled it. They didn't use the R? Yes. The original spelling of the brand was wrong. And then they did a rebrand and spelled it correctly. And then the rebrand didn't actually work and closed the market. I love that brand.
[00:15:32] Mike Schneider: That was tasty stuff.
[00:15:33] Ray Latif: Talk about brands that I wish were back on the market. That is number one. Yeah.
[00:15:38] John Craven: Yeah. Their shots were fire.
[00:15:40] Ray Latif: They were so good. I think there was one that was actually called fire.
[00:15:43] John Craven: Yeah.
[00:15:44] Ray Latif: Yeah, there you go If we only had some temporal term work right now, I'd be giving you three four shots John. Yes Yes, exactly.
[00:15:53] Mike Schneider: Nope. Nope. It's got to be heated. It's got to be hit a Golden Tiger. We gotta get some golden.
[00:15:58] Ray Latif: Oh, yeah I'm just gonna be writing into the podcast ask a taste reader calm. I got everything I wanted the mailbox is gonna be flooded flooded and
[00:16:07] Mike Schneider: Big love to Ajay, Johnna V, whole family.
[00:16:10] Ray Latif: Hopefully everything goes well. Jackie, we've barely heard from you because we're taking up all the time. I feel bad. I'm curious as to what you're packing food and beverage snack wise for the big trip.
[00:16:23] John Craven: Oh, yes. I haven't gotten that far yet, which I need to do like right away. I have limited space in my bag.
[00:16:30] Ray Latif: But yeah, I'm definitely going to be- You checking a bag or you going the- I'm going- Sticking over your head.
[00:16:34] John Craven: Light mode. I'm going just carry on only with a backpack. I like it. I like it. We've got laundry. Oh, perfect.
[00:16:41] Ray Latif: Yeah, I hooked us up there.
[00:16:43] John Craven: Don't worry.
[00:16:43] Ray Latif: We need some context here. Jackie and Mike are rooming together at an Airbnb. Rooming together. We got our, yeah, we got a flat.
[00:16:49] John Craven: We have separate rooms.
[00:16:50] Ray Latif: You don't have bunk beds? They're gonna slap on the front of the door of the flat bev net marketing team only nobody Making force and strategize going to London for Oh, dear God. Okay. So you got to get ahead of your, your planning here, but I mean, what, what do you guys been receiving in the, uh, in the WCB? Cause I never see anything anymore.
[00:17:18] John Craven: Yeah. I have some coffee, which these coffees specifically are great. Cause I've been monitoring my caffeine levels and trying to drink more tea. And I have the Explorer Cold Bruce and they have. the caffeine-free variety. They have half-calf and then they have their single-origin cold brew. And I've been drinking a lot of their half-calf because you get the same experience. You kind of get this like placebo effect if you think you're drinking like a fully caffeinated cold brew, but you only have half the caffeine so you don't get as jittery or the crash that I usually would get from caffeine, especially Man Cold brew. So this is really, really tasty. It's called the Seeker. their half-calf. And I feel like I'm starting to see more either decaf or half-caffeinated options pop up, which is cool.
[00:18:10] Ray Latif: Yeah, I think we talked about this because Explorer was in The Newton Beverage Showdown at BevNET Live Summer 2024. And I think there was a lot of excitement among the judges for this idea of a half-calf or a de-calf. How is it going to be marketed? How big is the audience for this? And, you know, is it sort of ahead of its time at this point? John Craven, I don't know if you want to weigh in on Do you remember in the room when, I think there was a lot of excitement about the decaf, but then everyone was like, but that's only one product in their portfolio. You want input on the half-caf? I want input on the idea of, can you lead with decaf coffee as the seller, the primary driver of your platform?
[00:18:54] Jacqui Brugliera: Sure, you could lead with anything, theoretically. It just might not be the best of strategies. I mean, the decaf market is... well-established for sure, but it's way smaller than the overall size of the coffee market for sure. And people who are looking to moderate, I don't know, that seems sort of logical given things like the low and no alka kind of thing that people might do that with other stimulants, caffeine being one, of course, that's kind of obvious.
[00:19:23] Ray Latif: The question, I think, in the room was also, well, why not just drink a half a cup of coffee when it comes to the half-caff variety? Why drink the whole thing if you only want 60 grams of caffeine?
[00:19:34] John Craven: Yeah, but you still want the full experience. It's just like drinking like a non-alcohol cocktail. You don't want to drink half or, I don't know, a tiny bit of a cocktail. You want the full glass.
[00:19:44] Mike Schneider: The reason is With Taste great. That's the reason you'd want to drink the whole thing. And Explorer, their decaf is phenomenal. Like if you want the coffee experience without any of the impact, drink that. There you go.
[00:19:58] John Craven: I also think like there's all these other, like I have this other brand, Cuppa, and it's mushroom coffee. And it has like ashwagandha and other adaptogens. So their main thing is it's healthy coffee and it's all day energy and no crash or no jitters. So I feel like people are just more sensitive to the effects of caffeine. So this is like fully caffeinated, but they're trying to like work around it by adding some other adaptogens or you could just drink less caffeine to avoid some of those like negative attributes.
[00:20:27] Ray Latif: Cuppa, spelled C-U-P-P-A, is a powder, if I'm not mistaken.
[00:20:31] John Craven: Yeah, it's like an instant coffee.
[00:20:33] Mike Schneider: There's some others like that. They've got some frenemies in the space, like Mug is a similar one, and Rye is the one that they won't leave me alone on Instagram.
[00:20:44] Ray Latif: Well, the Explorer Cold Brew, to be clear, comes in 12-ounce slum cans.
[00:20:48] John Craven: Yes.
[00:20:49] Mike Schneider: Rise was spending so much money on Instagram. I kept blocking accounts and a new one would come up with like some influencer who kept talking about Rise. You could not get away from it. It was really, really weird.
[00:21:01] Ray Latif: Well, you know what else is weird? When people claim that, now I get the placebo effect when it comes to coffee, but the placebo effect when it comes to non-alcoholic beer always blows my mind. Why? Because I have friends who are just like, oh, you know, it's time to get blasted. I'm going to have like four athletics. And they think that's like brewing company, which is a non-alcoholic beer. Well, yeah, but it's not 0.0. Right. But look, I've had this conversation a number of times with Bill Shufelt, who's one of the co-founders. And he's like, there is less alcohol in some of our beers. I shouldn't quote him, but basically he's saying there's some alcohol in like a lot of soft drinks that you drink. So Mountain Dew will have a little bit of alcohol. Get blasted off kombucha. Are you going to get blasted? Well, yeah, you'd probably be more likely to get blasted off kombucha than you would off, you know, athletic. OK, if you really want to feel it, I suggest you get one of these. This is, and John has one too. Yeah, I have one too. Yes. Straight Away Cocktails. which is a maker of ready-to-drink cocktails. They make it in small can formats and also in 750 milliliter bottles. Straight Away Cocktails has released a new product called 12 Nights of Cocktails. It is an advent calendar type of product. And you've got, as you can see if you're watching the video, 12 different options for your holiday pleasures. You get a Thai gimlet, Organ, Old Fashioned, and Nitro Espresso Martini, the list goes on and on. Bees knees, number three, Daiquiri. They also have a bunch of products that they haven't released before that are just specific to this advent calendar type product. Nitro Espresso Martini? Yeah. Sounds like it could be good. Pacific Paloma? Yes. So I am really excited about this. Cy Kane, who is the co-founder of Straight Away Cocktails. All around chill dude. Very, very chill dude. Very, very nice guy. Yeah, it was telling us about how well this is doing in Costco. Costco posted that this was available in their stores and that post became, according to Cy, the top branded product, other than Kirkland, top branded product performer in the past two years on their Instagram page in the first 10 hours. that the post was live. So very, very exciting stuff. Clearly people are excited about this product. I'm not sharing, I'm sorry. John, you have your own.
[00:23:17] John Craven: It would make a great gift.
[00:23:19] Ray Latif: That's why I'm holding on to it. Super excited.
[00:23:21] Mike Schneider: Looks like a giant cereal box. I think you know what to get Jackie for Christmas.
[00:23:26] Ray Latif: Oh, she said it would make a great gift Jackie I will buy you one of these stop at the Costco next to the office. Yeah, exactly Does Costco deliver you can Venmo Jackie?
[00:23:38] John Craven: Deliver their own it's cart.
[00:23:39] Ray Latif: I can like walk to Costco Jackie good Jackie will get when you can Venmo her Just just don't stop by the Harley-Davidson outlet along the way
[00:23:51] John Craven: I'll buy myself a Harley and an advent calendar and just ride off in the distance.
[00:23:54] Mike Schneider: You hear that, Mike? Oh, shoot. I guess I'm getting her gift, too. Yeah, you pay for the motorcycle.
[00:24:00] Jacqui Brugliera: Exactly. Oh, boy. Since we're talking about booze here, I got one more. And this one, I feel like it's going to be great for Ray, because I know he loves green juice. I do like green juice. He also really loves booze, as we just heard. We know that.
[00:24:15] Ray Latif: I like premium alcoholic beverages, not booze.
[00:24:19] Jacqui Brugliera: It's not exactly, well, I mean, I guess technically it has juice in it, but this is a Gardenista tequila cocktail. It's got tequila, green herbs, lime juice, ginger, and jalapeno. OK. Wow, let me just give you a little scooch very green.
[00:24:37] Ray Latif: Oh, yeah, I'm just gonna smell this cuz I got a I got an interview Good excuse, let's say it smells delicious It smells, there's the tequila and the jalapeno are definitely coming forward.
[00:24:51] John Craven: That's pretty darn good.
[00:24:52] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, it's really spicy. Almost tastes like there's like cilantro or something in there.
[00:24:57] Ray Latif: Yeah, there's a lot of... I can smell it.
[00:25:00] Mike Schneider: Yeah.
[00:25:00] Ray Latif: I'm starting to get a whiff from here. Yeah, there's a healthy amount of vegetables. Send that down so I can smell it.
[00:25:06] Jacqui Brugliera: On the nose. Yeah, there's a couple of different flavors, but I know Ray loves... Tequila in particular.
[00:25:12] John Craven: So I brought the tequila flavor for sounds like everything that goes on a taco and then a side of tequila.
[00:25:17] Jacqui Brugliera: Oh, that's a good call. Probably would pair pretty nice With Taste. But anyway, that's gardening stuff. Anyone wants to check it out? Well done. Should we talk about Nuri Ray?
[00:25:26] Mike Schneider: Sure. We got this Nori milkshake, uh, ultra filtered milkshake, which we were just talking about protein, right? 30 grams of protein.
[00:25:35] Ray Latif: Holy crap. Okay. So I saw this on the soccer field the other day. Someone was drinking this. I was like, I had never seen this before. Did you get that at Costco? Well, they sent it to us. Okay.
[00:25:43] Mike Schneider: So, um, Maybe? But you should try this. This is phenomenal. I had one. It's only 150 calories for 30 grams of protein shake. So like I could see having that either before or after a soccer game and being pretty happy. Or maybe some at halftime, some before. Yeah. You know, power that, power that match.
[00:25:59] Ray Latif: N-U-R-R-I is described as an ultra filtered milkshake. Oh, you know what else would be great?
[00:26:04] Mike Schneider: Recovery run after, or after a run, recovery for sure.
[00:26:08] Ray Latif: I think the biggest font on this or definitely the biggest font on this other than the logo is the 30 grams of protein. It's very, very clear what you're getting out of this thing.
[00:26:16] Mike Schneider: That's the hero, right? And we talk about this all the time of make something the hero besides your brand when you're new. And you're definitely going to be drawn in by 30 grams of protein. And then you're like, well, what is it? It's chocolate. Okay. That sounds good. Ultra filtered milkshake. That sounds good. You know, and it's also lactose free and there's some good calls on there. And also the icons are super cute. I like the cow.
[00:26:38] Ray Latif: I'm going to nitpick a bit here. Do it. Because it contains one gram of sugar. It says it contains one gram of sugar on the front of the pack. It's got your favorite sweeteners though. But then on the back it says it has zero grams of added sugar. Okay. So just if you're looking at, okay, so where does that one gram of sugar come from? It is made with, or this product is made with pectin, sucralose, ACE-K, and monk fruit. ACE-K and sucralose are artificial sweeteners, which I don't really love for a product that seems to be presenting itself as a better-for-you beverage. So Nuri, I like what you've done here, but if there's any way to... What do you want, sugar? Kick out the sucralose or ACE-K, that would be... Where are you going to sweeten it? Where's the one gram of sugar come from?
[00:27:23] Mike Schneider: I assume something I assume from the milk. I think Stevie's in there too.
[00:27:27] Ray Latif: Just FYI I don't see the last thing no no okay. No confused, but anyway great job on the packaging just if you can please drop the artificial sweeteners Last thing I got to talk about is one of our favorite cookie brands from Fancy Pants, Fancy Pants Baking Company, which operates not too far down the road from BevNET HQ. They've introduced a new product. It's perfect for the holidays, a gingersnap variety. These are crispy gingersnap cookies. As it describes on the front of the pack here, it says it's made with pantry ingredients. Pantry ingredients include flour, butter, brown sugar, cane sugar, eggs, ginger, oat milk, flour, salt, cinnamon, baking soda, and cloves. There you go. I love that.
[00:28:12] Mike Schneider: Often, ginger snaps lack something, which is the snap. These are crispy. So you get... You've had these too? Yeah, I've had these. And what haven't you eaten that we've already... I mean, I'm a frequent tester of fancy pants.
[00:28:27] Jacqui Brugliera: Okay. Well, I mean, also, like, along with myself are in the office like every day. So yeah, we pilfer all the packages.
[00:28:35] Mike Schneider: They've been very generous sending us samples over time. And so I've had a chance to have this in many different use occasions. I've dipped it in milk. I've had it straight. I've had three at a time.
[00:28:46] Ray Latif: Well, you know, I think... Different flavors at once. That's a great way of actually trying a product is to try it a number of different ways and a lot of different use cases. So I like the idea of dipping it in tea and then also just having it on its own. I'm more of the former.
[00:29:05] Mike Schneider: This is a cookie that fits into my lifestyle, I'll say that. I mean, like... The nice thing about it is that the serving size is four cookies for 140 calories. So you have one, you feel pretty good. You can have a second one and still only have a serving. That's nice. I like that. Didn't you eat half the bag though? Yeah. That's different though. That was a while ago.
[00:29:31] Ray Latif: That brings us to the end of this episode of Taste Radio. Thank you so much for listening. Taste Radio is a production of BevNET.com, Incorporated. Our audio engineer for Taste Radio is Joe Cracci. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt, and our video editor is Ryan Galang. Our social marketing manager is Amanda Smerlinski, and our designer is Amanda Huang. Just a reminder, if you like what you hear on Taste Radio, please share the podcast with friends and colleagues. And of course, we would love it if you could review us on the Apple Podcasts app or your listening platform of choice. Check us out on Instagram. Our handle is bevnettasteradio. As always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please send us an email to ask at Taste Radio.com. On behalf of the entire Taste Radio team, thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.
[00:30:21] Lucky Saint: you
