Hello, and thanks for tuning into Taste Radio, the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food or beverage. I'm Ray Latif, the editor and producer of Taste Radio, and with my co-host for this episode, John Craven, Melissa Traverse, and Mike Schneider. In this episode, we discuss three top of mind topics, including scrutiny around David Protein, a roundup of Sena 2026, seafood Expo North America, and a pithy social media campaign launched by Stiller Soda.
Taste Radios Meetup in New York City is less than a month away. It's on April 16th. That's a Thursday in New York City in Times Square at the offices of Anchin. I'm very excited for the NYC Meetup. I'm always excited to be in New York. It's. The, what do they call it, the center of the universe or is that Boston?
Boston's the hub of the universe. Hub, yeah. We're the hub and they're the big apple ray. Mm-hmm. They're the big apple. Uh, we're not the big anything here in Boston. Maybe the big bean, perhaps the baked bean. You can register for the NYC meetup@tasteradio.com slash meetups. You can also register for our other events upcoming this year, including the ones in San Diego, San Francisco, and London.
Our meetup in Austin is TBD in terms of location. But stay tuned for details because we'll have them very soon. Register Anyway, register anyway. You just sent us a note sent. There is no register. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. Yeah. And of course, Bev net Live is on the horizon. That's in June. June.
Specifically what? This is a quiz for everyone. June John Craven. What's what? What days in June. 10th and 11th. The 10th and 11th of June. And of course, Bev Net Live is the premier event of the beverage industry, at least for the first half of the year, the second half of the year. Uh, the one in LA is the premier beverage industry event, and we're now accepting applications for Bev Net Live new beverage showdown.
It's your chance to participate in and maybe win the industry's signature beverage brand competition. You can apply. To join us on stage@bevnet.com. Great. We talked to a lot of brands at Expo West who are applying. It's gonna be a great new beverage showdown again, but don't let that stop you from applying.
Get out there, apply today and uh, get into the selection process. It's only gonna be a great new beverage showdown if you apply, so That's true. That's very true. We need you to apply and remember, when you do apply, we ask for a video. Let's just very quickly talk about how to optimize your video such that we are very excited about your brand.
I mean, I don't think you should overthink your video. I think you should just get in there and show us what you're made of a little bit. Give us your pitch. Tell us why you want to be in the competition. Get in, get out. That's enough for us. We just wanna see a little bit of stage presence. Yeah, I, I mean, for me, I look for people that I think are going to be fun and exciting and vibrant on stage because.
I mean, that's a big part of the competition is the fun aspect of, wow. We're hearing from these new folks that are coming into the industry and are bringing a dose of excitement, bringing some, again, vibrancy and newness, for lack of a better word, to our amazing beverage. You know, just by applying, you're getting yourself out there in front of our eyes.
So there's a good reason right there. We watch all the videos. We're just looking for a little bit of personality. You don't have to worry about being a professionally trained speaker or anything like that. Just, you know, show us that you love what you're doing and that you have purpose, and that should be enough, I would say.
So, Melissa, how many times have you pitched on stage? I mean, I feel like, you know, we always ask folks. To present their business plans and products to folks on stage. And I feel like we, when we get up on stage, we do a little bit of that, so we're kind of selling ourselves as well. Right? Sure. Yeah, absolutely.
And when you're on stage, I mean, do you feel comfortable doing that? I mean, is there just something that is there, is there a sort of thing that you do to make yourself comfortable no matter what it is? I always get. Super nervous. I mean, you know me like I over prepare for everything, but as soon as I get up there, everything falls away and I'm totally fine.
And I hear that from so many people as well that they're nervous about getting up there, which I actually think is not such a bad sign. I heard somewhere that the nervous energy that you get before having to perform actually improves your performance. So it's good if you're nervous before you get up there.
I'd say just. Turn off that voice of doubt in your head. You can, you can easily kick that out as soon as like a microphone is in front of you or a camera comes on and just know, like particularly at bev net, it's a safe space. We're trying to help you and so is all of our community. Yeah. Are you nervous or are you excited?
Both. I think it's both, right? It's like, ugh. I mean, if you're naturally introverted. I feel like I'm a naturally introverted person. It doesn't seem like it, but I am. It's kind of tough to get up there on stage, but then once you're in that flow state, it's a lot easier. It feels a lot easier. Anyway, you can always just find that person in the audience who's like vibing with you, you know?
And just focus on that person, and nobody else in the audience knows. You're not looking at them. They just start looking at your presentation. They're listening to what you have to say. It all turns out. Better than you think it will. And then also we've had, you know, folks up there that they pause, they catch themselves.
The audience just gives them all kinds of positive energy to keep going 'cause we just want to hear what you have to say and whatever you have to say, I guarantee it's good enough. Yeah, it's like anything else. Practice makes perfect. You're gonna be pitching to investors and retailers and other decision makers.
So the more practice you get, the more comfortable you'll be. Oh, just put more pressure on 'em now, Melissa. Geez. Just keep doing it. That's true. That's true. I mentioned introverted and sort of anxiety on stage because I remember when Peter Ra Hall, who is the founder or co-founder of RXBAR and now the founder of David Protein.
When I saw him at NA a few years ago on stage, it felt like he had a little bit of shyness going on. It felt like he was not naturally comfortable with being on stage and being the center of attention, the focus of whatever presentation was going on. And I think part of it was that he was still getting accustomed to the fact that he was running this multimillion dollar company that everyone was talking about, and a potential, you know, humongous exit.
Actually, I think at the time they had exited, it was a few months after they had exited, and so. I think about, you know, what he's accomplished since, and I've spoken to him since, like I talked to him a couple years ago about the development of David Protein. I feel like he's a little bit more comfortable in his shoes and I feel like he is sort of setting the stage at this point for the next, I guess, evolution of protein in portable form.
You know, when David came out. It definitely felt like something different and we've seen a lot of copycats since, and now that we've seen a lot of this attention on the brand, we're starting to see a lot of scrutiny around the brand. And I think, Melissa, this is something you wanna talk about today. I have been rabidly following the David controversy.
It seems like there's, you know, a new story every month or so. So of course there was a class action lawsuit filed in January. Against David Barr in the, the claim was that the bars have 400% more fat and 80% more calories than what you see on the nutritional panel. The response by David Barr is that the mechanism by which these calories are being calculated is a, I think it's a bomb, Caler, colorimeter, something like that.
I confuse it with a bomb cyclone. For weather. That's a weather phenomenon. I don't know why you would use BOMB for as a measurement for anything really. But anyway, so apparently that tracks the total number of calories. But the response from David Barr was that the ingredient that they have in the bars, which is EPG and that that was actually the company that David Barr bought Epie, which is the maker of EPG, which is a fat substitute.
Your body digests. I think a portion of it, but 92% of it doesn't get digested. So the calories are being calculated, but it's not calculating what your body is using. And it's just kind of like a big, I don't know. It's a big story. It feels like a big mess to me. Sounds like a big scientific mess. Yeah. But I'm curious to, you know, hear what you guys think.
Does this affect consumer perception of the product? Does it affect their trust? I mean, I think people are moving away from ultra processed foods. It reminds me of that scene in Mean Girls where the antagonist, I forget her name, uh, the blonde girl in, in the uh, uh, movie. Oh, yeah. Thinks she's eating low calorie protein bars.
Right. She's actually eating very high calorie protein bars. She's like, why am I still gaining weight? And it turns out that, uh, Lindsay Lohan's character's actually giving her a very high calorie, high fat protein bars. I've seen that come up in the articles. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, I, I guess to answer your question, I don't.
Think it will really matter, and these lawsuits, I can't help but just kind of roll my eyes or sigh, you know? It's like, what? What is it today? I mean, we've seen class action lawsuits over, there aren't as many electrolytes as this claim. There aren't as many probiotics. Blah, blah, blah. I mean, I think a lot of these just have no interest of protecting, you know, the consumer and what you just described, which is sort of like a nice ambiguous, you know, each party will have its own opinion.
Just sounds like you know that that'll probably get a settlement. So mission accomplished. I guess my feeling is that if it tastes good, then people are gonna keep buying like Diet Coke. It's. People still drink Diet Coke. It's super ultra processed. It has a lot of ingredients that people are trying to avoid, but people like the taste of it.
I don't know if you, have you guys tried the David Bars? I feel like they don't taste great. So I bought a bunch of these. I, I have them here with me. I bought a bunch of them when they showed up at Market Basket and I tried one and I haven't been able to eat the rest of them 'cause I just don't really love the flavor.
I mean, clearly bars are very subjective, you know, polarizing in some cases or there wouldn't be like thousands of them. So I think what they've done with their launch where yeah, they have some people who love it and other people that are out there, you know, ranting that they hate it. It's actually kind of a good thing for their brand.
I mean, it makes it stand out and they've done a really good job of making that brand stand out like in a relatively short amount of time. That's the no PR is bad PR philosophy. Yeah. I'm not really sure that that's what they're going for with things like, you know, ending up in a class action lawsuit, but Right.
Even that it's some sort of bump in the road that, you know, that whole like EPG thing, it kind of felt like it needed some education behind it. And I guess if there's a good side effect of this maybe slightly negative situation, it might. Force the conversation and accelerate education of an ingredient that otherwise, like how do they promote it?
You know, my thinking with these bars is that they're function first and flavor second, and so if the flavor is at least passable, you'll get somebody who wants to eat the whole thing. So I'm pretty sure that's where people are landing on these. The last time I tasted one, which was. Probably, I dunno, formulation one, they were fine.
Whatever flavor they said they were was what it tasted like to me on some level. But I felt like, okay, there's a lot of things that they're not even trying to mask yet that are in this bar. I mean, I think that if you are looking at the nutrition facts panel on these bars, you see 150 calories. You see two grams of fat.
And you see 28 grams of protein. But the thing that really stands out to me is the seven grams of sugar alcohol and that. Doesn't align with the front of the package, which says zero grams of sugar. So it doesn't matter if you know the difference between sugar, alcohol, and sugar, the fact that you have seven grams of sugar alcohol on here, I think it's gonna throw some folks off, especially ones who are gonna pay a premium for David bars and say, I'm buying this because it has macros.
Or at least it, it has less of what I don't want in these products at the end of the day. I think David is going through what a lot of fast growing companies go through, which is once you hit that $10 million mark, you're automatically a target for these class action lawsuits. You know Justin Proc now who is an attorney with Greenburg Greenberg, Tori, I can never pronounce that.
He's really an expert on legal claims associated with nutrition facts, panels, and whatnot. Has talked about the fact that there are these law firms that will go into a boardroom, bust out, I don't know, 20 to 30 brands that are new and emerging on the market and say, okay, let's figure out how we can suit this company and sue that company.
And okay, well can we actually get any money outta that company? Can we get any money outta that company? So once I think to your point, John, like. Once you reach a certain size, you are gonna have a target on your back. It's not necessarily a good thing. In fact, Mike Kerin talked about this at Benet Live many years ago when Vita Coco got sued.
I think it was for sure. Was it for sugar? Electrolytes? Electrolytes. And he was furious. And he is. He just couldn't believe that they were getting sued for what he thought was a pretty frivolous reason. But at the end of the day. They paid whatever they needed to pay and they moved on. They have since been a booming company.
Well, they were booming company then too. Didn't really slow 'em down, so, uh, they weren't at the, not at the stock. Three, $300 million a year at this point. Yeah. It, it wasn't, I guess my point was more that they're not even necessarily waiting till you're like, is giant as you're going. Well, I think David is probably doing, you know, tens of millions of dollars in revenue, if not more than that at this point.
Based on their distribution and based on the, the amount of, I guess, interest that I've seen in the brand. Yeah. So yeah, they're doing pretty well. Yeah. And Craven, to your point, I didn't understand EPG before all of this. Now I think I understand how it behaves in your body. I didn't really look into it before, so now I definitely understand the ingredient more.
I mean, I'm not sure it'll have consumer sort of Yeah. Education, but. You know, it'll certainly create industry awareness. I mean, we're doing it right now. Right. And I think that's sort of like, to some extent, probably the little bit of a spark that they might need for that ingredient. Not that they're like not doing okay without that, but still.
We'll see what happens. Well, it scares me that 92% of the EPG is not actually digested in your body, which, um, sounds a little bit like cholesterol esra. Yeah. So back in the day, remember that? Yeah. Apparently a hundred percent of Esra was not digested in the body. And if you don't remember what Chora was, it was basically an oil that.
Just Google it. We don't need to get into that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But basically it was used for chips. You would, you would fry these chips in Illustra and supposedly they would have less fat, but the Illustra turned out to be like plastic. So essentially, yeah. Yeah. Well I'm, I'm definitely interested to see how this plays out and I'm, you know, I think we're all watching protein in general.
I was just talking to Sherry Fry of Nielsen IQ on the non based podcast, and she was talking about how consumers are moving away from grams of protein and macros. To things like nutrient density and availability of nutrients. So you know, if the current phase we're in right now is 30 grams of protein, the next phase is looking for complete proteins, bioavailability and nutrient density per calorie.
So how can I find that podcast? You could go to non based.com/podcast. And listen to it this week. Can I find it on my listening platform of choice? You could also find it on your listening platform of choice, Mike. Awesome. Thank you. I coined that term, by the way. Listening platform of choice. Did you TM Royal?
Wait, wait, I, of course you did, but I did. You know, you know your, but most people, most people say your favorite listening platform. You know your good one. Somebody else uses your term. This is true. I've said it probably a thousand times. On this podcast. You have said, oh, your listening platform of choice.
Yes, indeed. When it comes to protein density and clean ingredients, one has to look no further than seafood, right? And seafood is one of the ultimate sources of clean protein. You have essentially a single ingredient. I mean, it is a single ingredient depending on what you're eating, and I was really excited to go to the, or attend the Seafood Expo North America Show, which was held at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.
Yesterday. It started on Sunday. It ended on Tuesday, a global event mix of exhibitors, buyers, restaurateurs, of course, fish mongers, and processors. It's an event that leans heavily toward food service, but there's definitely a number of. Retail brands that are exhibited at the show, and it gives you a sense of sort of where that category, that retail seafood brand category is going.
It felt a tiny bit quieter in terms of consumer brands than it did in years past, but definitely saw familiar themes of innovation, convenience, absolutely protein forward nutrition, really distinctive flavors and sustainability. Frozen meals were the primary form or format for innovation that I saw at the show.
There was a brand called Amar, A QUA, space MAR. They're best known for their smi, you know what Remi is? I know I've had it, but I guess I don't know what it is. It's better known as imitation crab. So anytime I get in my belly, no, but you know, I call it anytime you had a California roll back in the day and they're like, oh, is this crab?
They're like, no, it's imitation crab. You're like, Ugh. It's usually crap. So they created a new name for it's smart. Simi sounds a lot better. Oh, this California. This is a California roll with Simi. Oh, wonderful. That sounds better than what I called it, which was KA. Oh gosh. So, Amar, Aqua Mark, excuse me, has steadily introduced new prepared foods and they're releasing a lot of them.
At the end of this, your more specifically in Q3, the stuff that was really most eye catching for me was their appetizer. So they had. Fried scallop bites and lobster and shrimp were Otto cakes and they were all finished with these like little crispy rice balls. Hmm. And I, I was like, this is exactly, I think what consumers want for their frozen appetizers.
If you're looking for something new in that space or in that aisle, you want new flavors. You want familiar flavors, but you also want something new in terms of the texture. You want to something that's a little different. And so you bite at these things and it's got this. Great crunchy exterior and then this delicious flavor inside, which I thought was fantastic.
And from a retailer perspective, the price of seafood certainly isn't coming down. It's a fairly expensive product. So the more value add you can provide and the less seafood and the more rice crunch you can include, certainly helps everybody. That's a really, really good point actually. And you know, a lot of the discussion that I had with exhibitors yesterday was about.
Trying to make seafood as easy as possible for the consumer. Well, John Slack, something yesterday that I thought was relatively interesting and it was a, uh, new, I don't know, I can't call it a campaign 'cause it, it was just Ben Stiller in a supermarket. I mean, it's what, it's, no, it wasn't. Yeah, I guess you're right.
I'd call it a social media campaign. Sure, sure. Sure. I don't know. You think in old 32nd spots on uh, I dunno. What TV channel would you watch? I don't even know. Channel 56 Channel. Yeah, there you go. WVI. There you go. That's right. Yeah. It was a social media video. Just a Ben Stiller in a whole foods sampling stiller soda.
Kind of pretending not to be Ben Stiller and people realize he's Ben Stiller. It's kind of funny, I don't know. Got some hate on, uh. Uh, social media I saw mostly of like, why is this guy launching a soda? But, uh, I don't know. At least it's not a tequila. I mean, for me, I, I guess it's kind of funny. I'm sure they only selected certain clips from whatever they shot because Oh, for sure.
There were probably just as many people asking for selfies and coming in there and being like, obviously this guy's Ben Stiller. But yeah, I imagine that more people realized it was a prank or a joke than they did. Really questioning the fact that that was Ben Stiller. Anyway, we're talking about him now, which is the whole point, right?
Yeah. Well, I, I think it gets like the hate that I saw over it, or shade, if you will. It's more that, I don't know, Ben Stiller as a brand is kinda like innocuous, right? There's no like controversy there. Yeah. So the fact that he put his brand and his literal name on a soda, it just seems, you know, kind of on brand form, right?
Sure. And. I think he was kind of being, compared to like other celebrity brands that maybe really had a question of like, why is this person launching a, I don't know, whatever. And again, I mean he just launched something pretty ubiquitous and I think that was a pretty well executed little video that they did.
So, um, and nice to see that he's actually out there like doing something for this product that has his name on it. No doubt it was a very expensive video that they shot that. Well. I think that's the thing. At the end of the day, people are like, okay, obviously this guy can afford to launch a beverage company, and he's arrogant enough to put his name on it, which I'm not saying that, but I'm sure people are trying to say these things and can afford to do a slick social media campaign like this.
So that's probably where some of the hate came from. I welcome someone with that brand equity entering into the CPG space, and I think others in CPG will benefit from it. You know, seems to be a bunch of love for the Shirley Temple too. People seem to like it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love Mon fifo. Me too. Yeah, me too.
Melissa, you busted out these shots. I love these shots. Yeah, I just, um, I saw these in our beverage fridge today. Craven. I saw you drinking one. I drank like 12 of these. Yeah. Last week. And so good. So Mon FIFO is, can't stop. Won't stop. Mon FIFO is a shot brand. They are based out of Brooklyn, New York. I believe they're in the New York and New Jersey Whole Foods markets.
They are, are they all organic? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this brand of Juice Shots was, and Juice and Wellness Shots was founded by Justine Monell, who has since exited the company, but I'm forgetting who. The Lumen guys. The Lumen guys took it over. Mm-hmm. And they come in these two ounce glass bottles and three varieties that we have most is opening up the.
I have the Peruvian ginger with chlorophyll and oregano oil. Wasn't oregano oil in one of the Erwan? Get in smoothies? That It's in the germ warfare shot. Germ Warfare. Warfare. That's right. The quote, also known as the Poison shot, also known as Amanda s Lansky's. Favorite shot. Yes. Sorry, Amanda. Well, I mean, I love Bon fifa.
I've loved this brand since they launched, and I think they launched 2016, I wanna say that's a while ago. Yeah. Yeah. Monte FIFA won our new beverage showdown, bringing me back to the Showdown and apply for the showdown today. It was the same year that Vive, Vive Organic participated in the show down. So great to see that both brands are still around and live and kicking.
But I mean, speaking of kicking these shots really bring it. Yeah, I just tried the chlorophyll and oregano oil shot and I have to say it tastes really good for, especially oregano oil has an incredibly strong flavor, but they do a great job. It's tasting. That's probably because it has like the teeniest, right?
Tiniest little. Right, right. Maybe you only need a little bit. Yeah, you do. Yeah. I mean that stuff, it permeates, it's like saffron, you know, just you can't taste anything for hours. Oh my gosh. If you had the amount that's in the germ warfare shot, you'll know why we call it the poison shot. I guess for me, I still don't know after all these years what the benefit of consuming oregano oil is.
I believe it's antimicrobial and it's anti-inflammatory. Okay. Well I should probably start pounding these shots. Well, thanks Chris Taylor for sending us those. Yeah, it's good to see you at Exfo West. And it was also great to try the lumen, uh, new protein. Yeah, that was good. Yes. That's good. Yeah. Organic Ginger and saffron.
Okay. Yeah. And you know, now from a retailer perspective, shots are great because they take up less space, but oftentimes you get the same ring or maybe even a little bit higher than you get from a full size can. So I also wanna say these are innovations that the Lumen team. Likely created because the original Mon FIFA was a ginger shot and a turmeric shot.
And they were, they were fantastic. But these are great too. Yeah, these all sort of live up to the original, like for sure brand for sure. I don't know when the last time I had one of these was, but uh, that's good to see it back in the office. Good to see you. Thanks for that. Me, my day. Much needed. Killer Brownie does layered brownies.
And these are by far not a protein. No tallow, no protein. Noo, no Simi, no salmon. No. We we got, we have no EPG. It's the latest Remi Free. Remi Free Killer Brownies. No, these are full fat, full calorie, full sugar. But man, are they delicious? You know what? What really sucks when you have full calorie. Yeah. And it tastes bad.
My kids tried one and they always make fun of me 'cause they, if I bring something home from the office, they'll say like, does this have protein? Yeah. And fiber in it and they don't wanna eat it. But they were really excited to try this. If you're gonna call your product killer, it had better be it's killer.
Yeah, it's killer. This was, so this was actually a product that was started out out of a small specialty grocery store in Dayton, Ohio. And now they have packaged goods. They do white labeled bakery products, and this brownie is actually split into four bites, which is nice. Oh, perfect. Let's open it up.
Yeah, let's do it. Do you wanna try it? Do you want to? We might as well. Why not? Oh my God. Try it Lord. Oh wow. It's heavy. It almost looks like a giant Oh, so easy brownie. Which by the way, oh my God, that product so good. Yeah. Yeah. This is like as heavy as fudge. Right. Look at this. Right. I'm gonna do this one bite.
I'm, I'm not gonna watch. Kidding, kidding. But it's your second shot of the day, a brownie shot. This is like a workout just to lift this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is. It's intense. Hmm. Intense. Yeah. Killer. Yeah. Killer Brownies. I just wanted to shout out to, uh, Goldilocks. Remember Goldilocks, a uh, maker of quote Better for you cocktails, Ken Cocktails.
They have a new brand refresh. You can check it out on their Instagram. It's pretty cool.
