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[00:00:33] Ray Latif: Hey folks, I'm Ray Latif, the editor and producer of BevNET's Taste Radio podcast, and you're tuning into the latest episode of Elevator Talk, the series that profiles early stage and disruptive brands from across the food and beverage industry. Today's episode will focus on four beverage brands whose entrepreneurs will have an opportunity to hear feedback and advice from our co-host for this episode. That's Wade Yenny, who is the VP of Brand Management and Business Development for V Driven. Wade, how are you?
[00:01:05] Wade Yenny: Ray, I'm doing great. It's good to be back. It's been a minute.
[00:01:08] Ray Latif: It has been a minute. It's so good to see you, but you are the goat of co-hosting Elevator Talk. I don't know how many times it is this time at this point, but it's under 10. It's more than five. It's under 10, but I'm going to go with even eight. Is that fair?
[00:01:23] Wade Yenny: I like that. I'm wondering if I get a jacket, like what do they give on Saturday Night Live? Is it the green jackets they give? I'm waiting for my BevNET Taste Radio green jacket to come in the mail.
[00:01:32] Ray Latif: I think we can make that happen, especially because your contributions to this show are just so valuable. The advice, the feedback, the insights that you share with entrepreneurs has just been so helpful. And I'm really, really grateful that you've joined us and continue to join us on this show. Folks who don't know much about you or V Driven, tell us a bit about your background and what V Driven does for emerging beverage and food companies.
[00:02:00] Wade Yenny: Sure. I'll try and keep it short and sweet, Ray. I've got 20 plus years of experience in category leadership in both natural organic, especially retail, as well as conventional, uh, doing everything, uh, born and raised in Ohio, spent time in Louisiana, California, and North Carolina. My last role before joining V-Driven, I was the vice president for the fresh market, overseeing all their center store categories. Uh, V-Driven is, is kind of a Swiss army knife for emerging brands. We work with brands in a number of ways from consulting to accounting services, deduction management services, and brokerage sales services. So we do a lot of things for a lot of brands, a la carte, whatever they need, we're there to support them how they need it.
[00:02:41] Ray Latif: Well, brands need a lot, especially early stage brands. And it's good to know that V-driven can address those needs in so many different ways. Now, you touched on your experience in retail as a buyer, as someone who manages categories. And I know that everyone who's listening or watching, and certainly the entrepreneurs who are joining us today, Have the same question that I've asked you in the past, which is, what is the best way for an emerging entrepreneur or an entrepreneur that operates an emerging brand to approach a grocery buyer and have the best chance of success for that person, that buyer, to say yes?
[00:03:25] Wade Yenny: The million-dollar question. I think there's a few things that come to mind. One, it's persistence. It's always, you know, don't be offended if you don't get your first email or reach-out answered. It could take 10. And quite frankly, that could happen with someone that has relationships. Buyers, category managers are very busy. Foraging is just a portion of what they do. There's a lot of things going on. So don't be discouraged. So be persistent. Two is know your retailer, know your target. How do they go to market? What do their shelf space look like? What white space do you fit on their shelves? So don't just go in assuming that they want to bring in your product just because it tastes good or is looks good, it's trendy. How do you fit on their shelves? What role do you play? And articulate that in your reach out as far as you know, this, this is the white space that I'm filling, or this is how I'm differentiating between what else is already on your shelf. And you should know what that is, either by a store visit in person, or spending a few minutes on their on their website via their Instacart selection or DoorDash, whatever the case may be, is to see what they're carrying, and how you fit in.
[00:04:31] Ray Latif: I think route to market is so important to know how the retailers will bring your product into the store. And it's funny how much that matters. When I've talked to retail buyers, they say, okay, we just want to know if these folks are buttoned up in terms of what they need to bring to the table, what we just expect from a lot of folks, but isn't necessarily there for, for people. Cause it's just, it takes time to learn the ropes in this industry.
[00:04:56] Wade Yenny: Right. Yeah. And I think a lot of times that's where a broker partner or a sales agency, you know, mends that gap, right? You don't know what you don't know. And, and so having, having a partner that can help you navigate those paths is going to. help grease the wheels a little bit and understand specific to each retailer what they're looking for. And everyone's different. It could be a different promotional ask, slotting, free fills, a number of things based on each specific retailer. And going into it blind is probably not the best recipe for success.
[00:05:28] Ray Latif: I am just once again elated that you're with us today. Wade, you're going to be joining us at our upcoming Nosh Live LA event in Marina Del Rey next month. And you are a seasoned Pitch Slam judge as well, someone who's participated in these competitions that we host at our events. And two of the brands on the show today are actually participating in our New Beverage Showdown on December 8th and hopefully 9th. So I hope that you can offer some good feedback and criticism, constructive criticism that is, that can help them prepare for the showdown. I know you can. I'm not saying I hope you can. I know you can.
[00:06:11] Wade Yenny: I look forward to it. I look forward to it.
[00:06:12] Ray Latif: For sure. For sure. All right. Are you ready to meet our first participant for this episode of Elevator Talk?
[00:06:19] Wade Yenny: Let's do it.
[00:06:20] Ray Latif: Let's do it indeed. That person is Vinnie Wilson, who is the co-founder of NoCap. Vinnie, it's great to see you again. Great to see you, Ray. Nice to meet you, Wade. Congratulations on making the semifinals of the New Beverage Showdown. It is a tough thing to do because there are so many people who want to participate in that competition. And we definitely saw something in No Cap. For folks who aren't familiar with the brand, tell us all about what you do.
[00:06:45] Speaker 2: Yeah, so I mean one of three things, the product, the brand, and the team. I'm the co-founder. My dad's sitting next to me, and he's the co-founder as well alongside. And yes, we started this brand one year, two months, and nine days ago. But at the same time, he's been in the beverage industry for 27 years, and I'm 27 years old. So it's been a long, long run that although the brand launched that last year, it's been in the making for the last 27. And the product itself is the first soda in history, first modern soda in history, with electrolytes for the next generation.
[00:07:20] Ray Latif: Yeah, one of the things that stood out with the first time that I was introduced to NoCap was that it felt like a soda brand for younger consumers, like a real legit, this is for Gen Z, even Gen Alpha consumers. You know, we have the Better For You prebiotic, probiotic sodas. It just felt like those were really positioned toward a slightly older audience. NoCap definitely feels younger. Is that the position you've been going for? I mean, are you really looking for that 21 and under crowd?
[00:07:52] Speaker 2: I mean, absolutely. When we were talking about these discussions with retailers and what they're currently looking at, we all know on this call that the modern soda category is on fire. But the problem that we saw a year ago, I mean, roughly a year and a half ago, was everyone is copying the share leaders. There is no one that is attacking that white space or that incrementality. So as I was walking the stores all across the country with my previous employment, I realized my generation, Gen Z and Gen Alpha, were absolutely neglected in this space. And that is exactly who our consumer is. Three to 30, we like to say, is our target demographic.
[00:08:28] Ray Latif: Three's a little on the young side, perhaps. 30, definitely appropriate, I would say. You know, Wade, I really appreciate this because it feels like you don't have to figure out what it is, right? No Cap soda pop. It is what it is, you know, and it doesn't require a ton of education, which I feel like is a breath of fresh air in our very complicated industry today. Do you feel the same way?
[00:08:54] Wade Yenny: Yeah, I think so. You know, thank you, Vinny, by the way, I got the sample box and tried a couple of flavors and enjoyed enjoyed what I tried. And I think, you know, for me, what's kind of stood out was some unique flavor profiles, as well as the as well as the electrolytes that Vinny mentioned. And, and certainly, that's something that, you know, more and more hydration, hydration, hydration, and obviously, with a beverage, hydration happens, but with the added, you know, the electrolyte component, I think, I see the white space that you're filling and kudos to that.
[00:09:22] Ray Latif: Yeah, one of the other really interesting things about NoCap are your licensing deals. You have flavors that are tied to pretty well-known brands, including your most recent partnership. Tell us all about it.
[00:09:39] Speaker 2: Yeah. So once again, I mean, yes, we're new founders, but we're not new to the industry. And with that, we've seen licensing taking over for the last few years now in the energy drink space. So all we are trying to do is basically bring that proof of concepts to a, to a new category, the modern soda category. So I had my goal set one year ago to say, Hey, we are going to be the first in this category to do a confectionery licensing deal. The first was Albany's gummies. It's portrayed as a better for you gummy. It fit. perfectly as a launch for us. And now most recently is Icy. So this one, we are absolutely excited to once again, add incrementality to not just the better for you consumer in the modern soda space, but the everyday shopper that looks at that Icy better for you soda and realizes, dang, this tastes like an Icy. It's a fricking awesome new brand with No Cap soda pop. And it's better for me trying to kill a couple of birds with one stone.
[00:10:33] Ray Latif: Wade mentioned the million dollar question. I feel like there's a billion dollar question here, which is about competition, right? And who you're competing against. And if it's, you know, the major players, and I guess if you're selling soda, you are up against those major players. And then the upstarts that we've talked about, or that I mentioned, these new, better for you sodas as well. Who do you see as your primary competitors?
[00:10:56] Speaker 2: And that's the interesting part is yes, we are on the shelf directly next to the poppies, the Ollie pops, the cove sodas, the culture pops, every fricking pop there is, but they're all fighting and trading dollars with that same consumer. So yes, we're competing on the shelf in those modern soda sets against those modern soda giants or those share leaders today. But I have yet to see a brand that is absolutely competing with us one-on-one. I know they will come. But with our brand and our ambassadorship program that we are absolutely exponentially growing right now, we are developing our own sort of cult following for that next generation. And I'm loving every bit of it.
[00:11:33] Ray Latif: I think that's a fair point. Uh, Wade, do you feel like that holds water? I mean, you know, it's, it definitely feels like the poppies and the Ollie pops and the culture pops are all competing as Vinny pointed out for that same consumer, No Cap, not necessarily in that space.
[00:11:47] Wade Yenny: Yeah, I see this brand going a little bit more geared towards that younger consumer where, you know, you keep hearing functional, functional, functional, functional, on that other side. And that's kind of that same, you know, maybe more mature consumer, I think, the one question I was going to ask you Vinny, relative to some of the licensing and things, and certainly the Albany's part makes a lot of sense as far as, you know, that better for you. But connotation. What about with with icy when I as a parent, and my kids are your age, so I'm dating myself. But as a parent, when I think about icy, I don't necessarily think of better for you. So how do you how do you work that piece into that when you think about it? Are you working against yourself with that licensing? Or what are your thoughts there?
[00:12:30] Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's kind of how we positioned our artwork on the can is, yes, little Timmy and little Stacy are going to see that No Cap front and center. They're going to see the IEC logo. It pops. It's in your face. But as you turn that can, we specifically made this for that shopper and for that parent to feel a sense of ease that, yes, although it is a nostalgic brand that may be known for artificial flavors or colors, This is that next generation nostalgia. It has the icy flavoring, but it is also no artificial flavors or colors. And it is the zero sugar, zero caffeine, zero calorie clean label product.
[00:13:06] Wade Yenny: Great. No, it makes sense.
[00:13:09] Ray Latif: Wade, what are your thoughts on channel strategy? I I'm thinking C store, you know, immediately for, for No Cap, but you know, where, where do you see, you know, an emphasis on a particular channel?
[00:13:20] Wade Yenny: No, I think see store makes a lot of sense. But I see natural natural specialty makes a lot of sense as well. And I think, you know, that's one of the challenges we talk about all the time when when you talk about your channel strategy, brand, I won't say it's easy. It's never easy for bearing brand, especially a beverage brand, but it's relatively easy or easier to navigate from natural organic specialty into those other channels. But coming from those other channels into natural organic specialty is more challenging. It is more difficult because the decision makers at those higher end markets don't want what's already on the shelf at Walmart, Target, and I'm naming people. So I think that's gonna be very interesting to see how you navigate that from a standpoint of, do you attack and get those placements in natural organic first? Or is there low hanging fruit on the convenience channel as Ray's talking about? And I don't know, Vinny, have you thought about that yet?
[00:14:19] Speaker 2: Yeah, so we're really excited. We're going back and forth with the national C-Store retailer now to enroll into a few thousand stores in 2026, which we're really, really excited about. And it was one comment in particular that if there was a modern soda that was first to succeed at C-Store, it's going to be No Cap. We've seen those share leaders attempt it in the past with either that 12 ounce stub can that just gets lost on the shelf in those cooler vaults, or our competitors that attempted a 16 ounce can, but charging almost $4 a can, it just was not. successful, successful. So we are going to balance and lead in 2026 into our first major C store with that 16. But we're also very, very excited to introduce in large format, our 7.5 ounce variety pack, which we think is really, really going to be exciting for that younger consumer, that three year old consumer, like I was joking about earlier, and really see that balance.
[00:15:18] Ray Latif: Yeah, I feel like the multi-pack actually might be a good fit for that natural specialty that Wade was talking about. I guess, where are you right now in terms of your retail footprint, Vinny?
[00:15:31] Speaker 2: Yeah, so we are in Albertsons Companies, Albertsons Vons Pavilions. We're in five divisions of Kroger, Kroger Dallas, Kroger Houston, Fry's, Smith's, and Ralph's. And we are loading into another big, big national retailer at the start of 2026, as well as that C Store National as well.
[00:15:50] Ray Latif: Very cool. Um, you mentioned price point. What is the price point for a 16 ounce can.
[00:15:54] Speaker 2: Yeah. So the 16 ounce can is two 49 or two for four our Santa at basically price matching the share leaders 12 ounce can, and these will be 10 99 eight packs priced down at nine 99.
[00:16:06] Ray Latif: For someone who is, you know, 27 years old, and I know your dad has a lot of experience, it feels like you're really buttoned up and ready to go. And it feels like you're a seasoned veteran of this beverage industry. And it's great to see. And I'm really excited to see you on stage, do your thing at BevNET Live LA 2025. Let's just keep this momentum going. And excited to see you in person at the event.
[00:16:34] Speaker 2: This is what I trained for. It's great to meet you, Ray. Great to meet you, Ray.
[00:16:38] Ray Latif: Yeah, absolutely. In the meantime, if you have any questions about the showdown or just want to stay in touch, please do so. We're here to help in any way we can.
[00:16:46] Speaker 2: Absolutely. Cheers guys.
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[00:17:05] Ray Latif: Artificial intelligence is reshaping every corner of the beverage industry. But where is it creating real value today? Stay tuned till the end of this episode for a bonus interview when I sit down with Andrew Krizis and Lucinda Awkwot of VIP to explore how AI is moving beyond analytics to automate decisions, improve efficiency, and transform the three-tier system. Great start to the show. Let's keep it going with our next guest. That's Terry Nguyen, who is the founder of Lua Coffee. Terry, it's great to see you again.
[00:17:46] Speaker 3: Nice to see you again.
[00:17:47] Ray Latif: Yes, you and I first met in San Diego as part of Taste Radio's San Diego meetup in September. I really love that event and I really love learning about Lua Coffee. I'm excited to share all the great stuff about your brand with our audience today. Tell us all about what you do.
[00:18:04] Speaker 3: Well, thank you for inviting me to do this. I really appreciate the time and everything right now. This is an opportunity for us to explain what Lua Coffee is. So the reason I named lúa, lúa means silk in Vietnamese, and the acronym is lasting unique aroma. So that's all combined because the taste of it is smooth, not aftertaste at all, and then it's strong, flavorful, and at the same time, not like other coffee. I'm working with my son right now, and he's more into marketing and sale. But what I am doing right now, just stay behind him and make sure all the manufacturers, the store who need it, and I'm going to be behind that. And we get involved with more community events. expand out there more to people to know our brand. And now we just got into Target and the first customer I have is Hy-Vee. And I want to say it, I fly back and forth from Minnesota and I just want to get to that store, but I couldn't. So one day I fly back and I say that, How am I going to get into that store? And then I, I didn't know I next to the lady who worked for Hy-Vee. And I find out the later that she worked there and I said, Oh, can we get into a Hy-Vee? And she said, no, I'm sorry. I could not help you. And then she said, well, if you want to go into Hy-Vee, you got to go into Range Me. So when I get home, I get excited. I don't know what Range Me is. So, and then I signed up and I said, Oh my God, Range Me have much more than Hy-Vee. So that's how I get in to, you know, and. accepting us and we've been selling over there and and get going now I'm into central market and other places and the area around us too. And also I want to tell you about the why I come up with this. I think Vietnamese coffee now is popular. But it takes forever to drink it because they have a cup. Also, the filter sits on it and drip by drip by drip. And I say that when I come up, first I come up with a pour over. When I saw that opportunity, I said, oh, this is Vietnamese coffee, you can sit on this. And the opportunity I have is better than sitting in a cup. For a long time, we just come up with the pullover and then people can use it fast. They don't have to clean up after the filter. That's what I'm going for, you know. And then now we come up with the teabags and ready to drink and ready to drink. It's also, I do it a different way than the Vietnamese condensed milk. So I put in coconut MTC oil, cane sugar, oat milk, and Arabica beans. So that's how I wanna be healthy way instead of condensed milk way, it's more too much calorie in it.
[00:21:18] Ray Latif: Yeah. And to be clear, Terry, you have three varieties. So Lua Coffee Markets, an oat milk latte that's dairy free, a cold brew coffee that doesn't contain any dairy. It's just straight cold brew coffee. And then your Vietnamese style coffee, which, as you mentioned, contains MCT oil, as well as reduced fat milk. Which is the best seller at this point?
[00:21:40] Speaker 3: I'll be honest with you, the Vietnamese one. This is the one they wanted. Everybody trying to ask. And then the second one is the oat milk.
[00:21:49] Ray Latif: Yeah, it definitely makes sense. And as you mentioned, you know, Vietnamese style coffee is definitely having a moment. You know, Nguyen Coffee Supply, probably the best known of these ready to drink brands in the natural and mainstream grocery channels. Wade, I think it's, you know, coffee is, Definitely a growth category. I feel like there's definitely something we're seeing with the category that we haven't seen in the last couple of years, which is it feels like, you know, the variety, the innovation has come back in a way that kind of dissipated, I would say, for a couple of years. But differentiation is just one part of the equation. You know, what are your thoughts on Lua Coffee and sort of breaking into what, again, I feel appears to be a category on the rise?
[00:22:40] Wade Yenny: Yeah, I think I've seen some uptick in coffee, certainly with some of the brands we work with. And then just generally speaking, when you start looking at the variations with the dairy-free aspect with the oat milk, and I've seen things like Horchata, I've seen Fairtrade, Organic, all different things that are kind of kind of coming into some white space in the category. And I think Vietnamese certainly plays into that as well. And I like what I've seen so far. And and you know, it's it's definitely a category that can be challenging. And I think when you look at the the dry shelf versus the cold shelf is probably where the some of the some of the other competition comes into play relative to is are you taking a single serve from the cold shelf for instant consumption? Or you looking at something maybe for a pick me up later in the afternoon, maybe looking for a multi-pack on the dry shelf. I think there's some, some synergies there or some strategy involved as far as which, which outlet you're attacking.
[00:23:45] Ray Latif: On the Vietnamese style coffee in particular, Lua Coffee's variety that is, I think a big differentiator is that coconut MCT oil. On front of pack, it's not something that is a big part of the can. In fact, I'm looking at the front of the can, I don't see that. Is that something that you think is a clear differentiator? Is that something that should be a little bit more or better communicated for that particular variety?
[00:24:10] Wade Yenny: I think from a marketing standpoint and from an attribute standpoint, it makes a lot of sense to me to maybe call that out a little bit more or accentuate it. Because if you're going to use more expensive ingredients, which in this case, obviously you are, you want to get credit for it, right? Not that it's hidden, but I think you want to make sure it's pronounced enough to clearly articulate hey, this is why this is better than the product that's right next to it that maybe doesn't have that attribute or those ingredients in it. And so I think it would make a lot of sense to consider iteration in the future as far as making that call out a little bit more clearly identified on the packaging.
[00:24:54] Speaker 3: Well, thank you. Thank you so much.
[00:24:56] Ray Latif: Yeah, and price points, you know, people are willing to pay a premium for better-for-you ingredients and a better-for-you product. What is your price point, Terry, on shelf?
[00:25:09] Speaker 3: On shelf, between five to seven, sometimes eight. So, especially the oatmeal, they're willing to pay sometimes $8 for a can.
[00:25:21] Ray Latif: Yeah, I mean, I think that's probably on the higher end for a lot of folks. Wade, would you agree? And do you have any thoughts on, I mean, I know you guys work with a lot of entrepreneurs and bringing that price point down, but any particular pointers you might have for Terry?
[00:25:36] Wade Yenny: Yeah, I think, you know, the retail strategy, when you look at where you're going after, I know, I think, I know you mentioned Hy-Vee. And, but when you're looking at the channel, especially that higher end, what makes sense? What are you sitting on the shelf next to? What does that price point look at the retailers that you're going after? And I think, it kind of backs up what we talked about previously is if you are indeed more expensive than what's next to you on the shelf, there has to be some kind of sales pitch or sales discussion as to why someone pays more for that. First with the category manager, but ultimately the end consumer. And I think understanding why this costs more, why I should pay more kind of backs up the quality of the ingredients. But yeah, Ray, I think from my, my perception of that category is a little bit higher than what's already out there. But, uh, to your point, I think, you know, the consumer isn't afraid to pay it if they understand what they're paying for.
[00:26:36] Ray Latif: Yeah. And I think that's the best point. Uh, you know, if they understand what they're paying for, Terry, talk about your social strategy, your marketing strategy, how you're getting the word out about Lua Coffee and what's resonating with consumers.
[00:26:49] Speaker 3: So we have social media. Also, we join in whole bunch of community event, whatever come up, we always be there and to do some testing to be whatever they sponsor to whoever they ask for. So we just got into international a film festival and then people loved it. And another one, we just did it last week. I think still going on right now is Asian Film Festival also. And people willing to taste it, they're willing to buy it right there at the spot and they ask to where they can get it.
[00:27:31] Ray Latif: That's always a good sign when they're willing to buy it right on the spot and ask where they can buy the product. And hopefully, you're not just saying your website, because everyone sells on their websites, but for them to be able to go into a store and pick it out of a cooler. Terry, I can't believe we're out of time. We always run out of time when we're doing these things and in the midst of great conversations. But let's continue this conversation. Please, please stay in touch. If we can help in any way, just let us know because it's really difficult to scale a beverage brand. But we know people and we know people who can offer us some guidance and some feedback and some help. So anytime anything comes up, just reach out and we'll do our best to help.
[00:28:13] Speaker 3: Well, thank you. And thank you, Wade. Thank you for everything. Thank you for this opportunity.
[00:28:18] Ray Latif: Let's keep things going with our next guests. That's Abe Schwartz and Todd Strauss-Schulzen, the co-founders of Tiz. Abe, Todd, it's great to see you guys.
[00:28:30] Speaker 4: Great to meet you guys, right? You got a really good voice.
[00:28:33] Ray Latif: I appreciate you saying that. I've worked on it for many, many years and finally things are paying off. I'm not getting rich off this thing, but at least people appreciate my voice.
[00:28:44] Speaker 5: You got your own show though, it's getting out there.
[00:28:47] Ray Latif: Yes, I'm gonna get some feedback from my superiors on that note. But anyway, Abe, Todd, I'm a fan of Tiz. I think you guys know this, we talked about it in a past episode of Taste Radio. Please share with our audience all of what you do.
[00:29:02] Speaker 4: Yeah, you're funny. You read the you read the can on the air and you said two idiots. I got to meet these idiots.
[00:29:07] Ray Latif: So I didn't say that. That was my colleague. He doesn't have you need to run the idiots are here.
[00:29:13] Speaker 4: Yeah, here we are. Here. Hi, nice to meet you. We're two idiots. So um, tis is a tangerine fizz. It's a it's a tangerine soda. We The story, the quick story is that I invented this like a year ago. I moved to this little house in Frogtown, which is on the east side of Los Angeles. I make movies and TV shows. I write comedy things, and that's what I usually do. I have nothing to do with beverage, but I loved Argentina as a kid, and I suddenly had this tangerine tree in my backyard, and every morning I would eat a tangerine and go get Lua Coffee, and then in the middle of last winter, This little old Mexican lady came banging on the door of my office and I opened up the door and she was screaming at me. She goes, we got to get all the tangerines off this tree right now. They're tart and tangy and fresh and delicious right now. And I was like, who are you? How'd you get into my house? And she goes, I'm your neighbor. And I planted that tree 40 years ago. And this is the week that they're so good. And I said, great. So you picked all these tangerines together and I gave her a bunch. And I was like, what am I going to do with all these fucking tangerines? I had like 400 of them. And she goes, you do what we all do in the community. You juice the tangerines, you freeze the juice. It's so delicious. You could add it to tequila. You can make ice cream with it. You could even make orange soda. And I thought, huh, I love orange soda. And so I kind of got a little bit obsessed with doing this throughout that entire winter. I was posting about it. All my creative friends that make movies and are actors and stuff were like, what the fuck are you doing? Have you lost your mind? But they all sort of pulled their resources and helped me figure this out. It was all kind of a joke that spiraled out of control. And after four months, I made a small batch of this and bottled it and came up with the name and the branding and did that on myself. And we sold out immediately. And I thought, well, that's the end of this hilarious bit. But instead, everyone started to hook me up with people that were in CPG. And enough of them looked at what I had done as a joke and said, maybe it's not a joke. Maybe this is a good idea to do a modern, cool, orange soda that is juice forward and has this sort of branding strategy. And I thought, the insight, I thought, how come orange soda doesn't have orange in it? Like, why is every orange soda has no oranges in it? It doesn't make any sense. And so we thought, why don't we try to do that? And we're not probiotic. We think that all that stuff's pretentious. I don't think that stuff tastes good. I don't like Love Stevia. We just wanted to be a fun, funny,
[00:31:36] Ray Latif: um modern soda that just tastes good and it's not going to give you diabetes and it's like 33 percent juice in it and that's kind of the short pitch that was a great pitch and i failed to mention that you guys are going to be pitching on stage at BevNET live as part of our new beverage showdown congratulations on getting into the semi-finals um i just want to note to our audience that uh We did check that mark on Apple Podcasts to let you know that there could be some cursing on this episode. So you shouldn't be surprised. You always check those things. You should anyway, before you start listening. You know, I love this concept. I was just talking about Orangina on the show and how Orangina isn't Orangina anymore. Okay, folks from Orangina are not going to come to BevNET Live. I'm sorry. It just doesn't. It just doesn't. And so it's incumbent upon entrepreneurs to fill that gap and give consumers what they've been missing for all these years, which is what they used to love with Orangina. There's just so much to break down about this brand. Wade, I know you have a million questions. I know you have a million thoughts. Let's just go right to you.
[00:32:44] Wade Yenny: No, I think, you know, it's one of the things I like. I got these samples as well. Thank you for sending them. And, you know, I like the artwork. I like the label. I felt it was very clear on what you were doing. And I think, you know, there certainly is, at least from my perception, making things from our younger days. And again, I'm dating ourselves here, but you know, healthier and new versions, right? And you see it across multiple categories through the store. And I think this is another example of, you know, Todd's referencing that, you know, he loved orange soda, you know, and now here we are all these years later, and orange soda isn't orange soda anymore. Or if there is orange soda out there, it's not what you remember. And so here's a little bit of a playful attempt at coming back with something that stays true to its roots, but at the same time, is better for you. And so I like what they're doing. I think there's a lot of opportunity there.
[00:33:44] Speaker 4: I tasted every orange soda that I could get my hands on. Once I sort of fell into this psychosis, I guess you could call it, I was like, well, I better make sure that I'm right about this. And I went, I drank, I mean, Orangina, and the Aranciatas, and the ones from Italy, and the Sunkiss, all of them. And the Japanese ones, and I will tell you, I'm not just saying this to be like founder guy, like they suck. They're way too sweet. They're like cloyingly sweet. They don't taste like orange. Like Sunkist is good and Fanta, like you love that, but I can't drink that. Like it's going to kill me. And also our can is a little eight ounce stubby can. Look at these cute little, cute little boys. And we just, for me, when I get like a 12 ounce can of soda, it's way too much stuff to drink. I don't want all that. So we have these cute little things that look like a Clementine, look like a tangerine. And, um, and we just thought we, there was a weirdly, a big avenue that there really isn't a good one. What if we made the best orange soda on the market?
[00:34:48] Ray Latif: Yeah, well, I enjoyed what I tasted. Abe, what's been the customer response? I mean, have you, You never know, right? I mean, you typically fall in love with your product before you go to market and make sure, okay, we really think people are going to like this. But what's been the feedback that you guys have gotten about Tiz?
[00:35:08] Speaker 5: Yeah, so the feedback has been pretty fantastic, actually. We launched basically just three months ago. Todd told you the story, and then we formulated, and we launched three months ago. And the feedback has been incredible from adults, from people my parents' age, people our age, kids, they're eight-year-olds that are going into stores, and they see the can, and they pick it up. it brings them right in. And their parents look at it, and it's 33% juice, and it's healthy, and they taste it, and they love it. So we've gotten a ton of great feedback. Everyone's been loving it. And it's been really shown in the fact that our distribution so far, we're in 50-plus stores in 15 states, all direct sales. We're not working with distributors. We're starting slow. Todd and I are both not beverage people. I came from the entertainment world as well. I was at Netflix for nearly a decade. I was a producer. I was a distributor of movies and things like that. So we are new at this. We are just kind of learning on the fly. But first we were like, let's make a great product. These two SKUs, which we love the taste. And then we've been going to stores. We're dropping samples. We're meeting these independent owners and these premium markets in LA that people that people love, Joosta, Wine and Eggs, Tropicana, Just What I Needed, bakeries, cafes, coffee shops. We talk to the owners, we drop samples, they put them in their cases, and they're calling us every week, be like, guys, we sold out over the weekend, we need five or six more cases. So the feedback's been great, people are loving the product. We actually just sold out of our first production run. We did a small-ish run because, you know, it costs a lot of money and we're new at this. We sold out, we cleaned, sold out, so we're doing another production run next week. We opened up Lassen's as our first supermarket. The velocity there has been sort of incredible. We've been doing demos there, and people taste it, and they go buy three or four when they put them in their cart. So it's been really great. People have been loving the product. Kids, adults, kind of exactly what we were going for. It's for everybody. It's not for just adults. It's not supposed to help you or be functional. And it's not just kind of a kid's drink that's juice. It's kind of for this wide swath of people so everybody can kind of enjoy tits.
[00:37:14] Ray Latif: Uh, before we get back to Wade, what's the price point real quick on each can.
[00:37:18] Speaker 5: So right now the price point is $3.50. It's a premium product in line with Orangina and things like that. Um, I would say eventually once we really scale, probably it'd be great to get that down to around $2.99, $3, um, just to be kind of more available and like in bigger, larger format stores. Um, but it's been selling at $3.50 quite well at these premium stores in LA.
[00:37:40] Ray Latif: Wade, Abe talked about the opportunity for Tiz to be loved by people of all ages and all backgrounds, or at least of all ages. You know, in our industry, oftentimes people say, you don't wanna be, you know, everything to everyone, but soda is pretty ubiquitous. You know, soda can go in a lot of places and can be appealing to a lot of folks. But if you were to dial it down and say, you know, you guys should really target on this particular consumer, who would that be?
[00:38:08] Wade Yenny: Hmm, good question. Uh, there's certainly the nostalgia play, right? We've kind of talked about. So I think, uh, but, but I think the, the packaging, the, the, just the, what I, what I feel is kind of the go-to-market right now just is going to be very appealing to the younger generation, you know, from a standpoint of, you know, it's, it's not too much liquid. Uh, it's, it's got 33% juice. It's, it's just going to be something that I, as a parent, uh, am going to be comfortable giving to my kid as opposed to some of the alternatives are out there. Uh, so I, I feel like that's a,
[00:38:39] Speaker 4: Wade, when you give it to your kid, you're going to want to take a sip of it yourself also.
[00:38:42] Wade Yenny: Well, yeah, I already have, Todd. I already have. I like it. And I think they're in line. And I'm sure you guys have already thought about this. But multi-packs, right? I mean, right now, the 8-ounce, it's great to trial, especially. But as you look to scale, where can I put this and you know take take it home and you know I'm taking to my kids baseball game or I'm taking it to you know an event like that where you know it's it's going to be I'm going to get more than just that one pop you know no pun intended but um you know I think I think to me that's that's kind of where my mind is right but I think you know speaking for myself and and in our family my wife I it's not uncommon for her to buy there's a reason why, aside from price, that the big boys are making smaller packages, because one, it's cost effective, you know, from a retail perspective, but two, a lot of people don't want 16 ounces or 12 ounces, they want eight or 10. So that's why you see all these packages out there, aside from price points. And so I think the appeal crosses multiple, multiple demographics. I like the kids play personally, because if you get them hooked now, you know, 5, 10, 20, 30 years from now, they're still a consumer. So I think I think there's a lot of lot of runway there for you.
[00:39:53] Speaker 5: I will say, just another quick point, I know we're out of time, but to your point about the size, the big feedback and the big part of the reception we've got, people love the taste, love the look, everyone loves the size. Everyone says, we don't see this can size, it's so cute, it's so fun, and that's been kind of the biggest note that we've gotten, people are loving the size and the actual can itself. Fits in your pocket, fits in your purse. There you go. Are you guys in Erewhon yet? Not yet. We'll probably, probably after the second production run, top of the new year, we'll join that whole racket.
[00:40:23] Ray Latif: Well, you know what? I'll stop there because I think we could go on for another three, four hours. We can talk about it in Marina Del Rey about it. We will do that. Abe, Todd, this has been probably one of the most entertaining interviews that we've done on Elevator Talk. Thank you so much for joining us today. Really excited to see you guys on stage at BevNET Live. Thanks, Ray.
[00:40:44] Speaker 6: Taste Radio meetups are continuing in Chicago, San Diego, San Francisco, and London. Come hang out with the food, beverage, and beer community for live podcast recordings, CPG networking, and sample sharing. Want to attend or partner with us? Head to Taste Radio.com slash meetups.
[00:41:02] Speaker 7: Quick pause to let you know that the leading event for the beverage industry is headed back to Los Angeles this December 6th through 8th. BevNET Live brings founders, investors, retailers, suppliers, and operators together for product discovery, high-value conversations, and partnerships that can shape what comes next. Early registration pricing is available now. Head to bevnetlive.com to register. Mark your calendar. Nosh Live is back December 3rd and 4th in Los Angeles. Join packaged food founders, buyers, investors, and operators for two days of product discovery and conversations focused on what's next. Early registration pricing is available now. Head to noshlive.com to register.
[00:41:40] Ray Latif: Great stuff. All right. Our final participant for this episode of Elevator Talk is Maria Velasquez, who is the founder of The Purple Drop. Maria, it's great to see you.
[00:41:50] Speaker 7: Thank you so much for having me.
[00:41:51] Ray Latif: Thanks for your professional setup. Look at you. I love it. Well done. Do you do a lot of podcasting?
[00:41:57] Speaker 7: I do. By day, aside from my new adventure in CPG, by day I work in tech and cybersecurity marketing, and I run a community for marketing professionals that work in cybersecurity. And we have a podcast where we highlight stories of amazing marketers doing amazing campaigns.
[00:42:14] Ray Latif: I love it. I love it. By the way, incognito mode, does that actually work on your phone?
[00:42:20] Speaker 7: Not really. Not really. Those advertisers still find a way to track you and cookie you and all of that.
[00:42:28] Ray Latif: Okay. Well, we need to talk after the show about my browsing habits because every single time I could type in a word and the next thing you know, I get 24 advertisements or if I say something, somehow it ends up popping up on my phone. I could say the word coffee and then I get coffee showing up in my Instagram posts left and right. Absolutely.
[00:42:50] Speaker 7: I have ideas for you. I have the advice.
[00:42:52] Ray Latif: Okay, good. Well, I'm going to add another minute to this because I was wasting your time. I apologize. The Purple Drop, very cool brand. Tell us about what you do.
[00:43:00] Speaker 7: Thank you. So yeah, my name is Maria Velasquez. I'm the founder of the Purple Drop alongside my husband, Roger. We are not your typical CPG founders. Like I said, I'm in tech, he's in advertising, but we are massive foodies. He's Peruvian, he's from Lima. And we drink this at home all the time. My mother-in-law taught me how to make it, even though I'm not Peruvian. And on a recent trip to Peru, we had that light bulb moment that everybody should be drinking this. So the Purple Drop is a new beverage brand. It's inspired by the Peruvian chicha morada, which we consider a Peruvian super drink. because it's made from purple corn that's grown high in the Andes and it's packed with antioxidants. So we don't make that claim just yet. We we kind of went through that. And I know, Wade, you're you're nodding and smiling. And you know what I'm talking about? It's earthy. It's citrusy. It's got a hint of spice. It's very refreshing in Peru. They drink it in cold months, warm and in summer months, cold. It's loved by everyone. And so we thought, you know what? We should bring it to the American consumer. Everyone should have one of these in their fridge. So that's the origin story. We are super early stage. We're launching in January officially. We're currently working with a Kopecker. Actually, it's a brewery. We went back and forth in the process of trying to find the right Kopecker that will accommodate the process of brewing and extracting the juice from the purple corn. and staying as close as possible and true to that abuelita recipe. And so essentially we found that making beer is as close as possible from a process perspective to getting a really good product out of this. And we're basically gearing up for Winter Fancy Fair which we got into as a startup. We're super excited and we're nervous but we're gonna go out there and just be ourselves and show off what we've come up with and really share the Peruvian culture with everyone.
[00:44:58] Ray Latif: I'm thrilled that you're going to be there in San Diego for Winter Fancy Fair. It's a good show. And I just want to taste your product. I think that was my number one question. Wade, is that your biggest question as well?
[00:45:09] Wade Yenny: It's not, Ray, because I've tried it. Yes, I sent him. She sent some to me. I should have sent you as well.
[00:45:15] Speaker 2: I'm so sorry.
[00:45:15] Wade Yenny: I think this is the first time that this has ever happened, that I've tried something that you haven't. It's been the reverse. But yeah, I can go into a little bit. I've got questions. I won't even say pleasantly surprised, because I had no expectations going into it. I thought, purple corn? What is this? And my mind rolled to beer. I'm glad she mentioned the Kopacker piece, because I thought, what is this going to taste like? And from my perspective and my taste buds, and believe me, they're anything but refined. I thought I thought I told I had this last night, I told my wife, I said, it almost tastes like a spiced applesauce, like a very, you know, I got an apple taste out of it. And you know, I kept looking at the greens of like purple corn, where's the you know, but but I think when you with the spices and everything together, that's kind of what I took out of it. So the first question I had on the taste is, well, I guess backing up from a supply chain, does it have to be refrigerated from production all the way through?
[00:46:14] Speaker 7: No, so the samples I sent you are samples that I make here at a shared licensed kitchen. So that one does need to be refrigerated, but we're working to make sure the end product is pasteurized and shelf stable. And that's the reason why also we've been working on this since early this year, probably like March. And so it was really hard to find that facility that's going to accommodate the retort or pasteurization to make sure that it's shelf stable.
[00:46:40] Wade Yenny: Awesome, awesome. Yeah, Ray, I think you'd like it. I have to dig a little bit only because this has never happened before, so.
[00:46:49] Ray Latif: I'm glad you got to try it because it does look so interesting. Ironically, this is the second purple corn product I've seen this year. I met someone at Expo West who's also launching a purple corn beverage, which is pretty interesting. But what's the occasion? What's the drinking occasion? When should you be consuming a product like this?
[00:47:11] Speaker 7: Gosh, every day, every day you'll find chicha morada on a dinner table at a Peruvian family's house. It goes really well with pollo a la brasa, which is that rotisserie chicken that Peru is very famous for, but really every day. And even in Peru, there are these almost like breweries, but they call them chicheria. And you go there and that's, you know, the main drink is chicha morada and you can have some, you know, Peruvian bar food and that sort of thing. But also it makes a great cocktail mixer. You can make a chicha sour from it, which is a very famous also cocktail in Peru. What else? I mean, like I said, in winter months you can drink it warm to keep you warm, but then in summer months at the beach, on ice, really anywhere.
[00:47:58] Ray Latif: I often talk about point of reference as being really important when it comes to education and an education strategy. You want people to say, oh yeah, I know this ingredient or I understand this particular product because I have a point of reference. I know there's just something similar out there. When we heard from the Tiz guys, they talked about Orangina and orange soda. How would you advise Maria as to the basis for an education strategy? How do you get people to understand what it is pretty quickly? I know it's going to require at least 10 seconds or more, but how do you get them to really understand and appreciate what she's doing, what she's selling?
[00:48:37] Wade Yenny: Right, you know, just for full disclosure, what she sent me, as she mentioned, was more of a production sample. So it's not finished packaging by any means. So I think packaging is going to be super important, you know, telling the story. And you have a great story to tell, right? There's a lot of history, you know, and backgrounds of the ethnic piece comes in, I think, especially now, there's so much appetite for cultural, cultural piece, you know, and, you know, the, the melting pot that we are it's but but we the foodie culture everything there so i think um people are more uh receptive to trying new things and not being shied away by i don't know what this is or what but i think that educational part of from a labeling packaging standpoints could be super important I think your socials are going to be super important as far as getting those up and going. And then when you first get your first couple of stores, just getting some early traction with the store personnel, shaking hands, kissing babies, handing samples out, getting them to try it. Because I talk about this all the time, that those store people, especially in a smaller, you know, smaller store, they can be your biggest advocates as far as telling people about this brand, you know, and they're working those shelves and registers and everything every day. And they can say, Hey, oh, have you tried this? You need to it's fantastic. And so word of mouth, I think is gonna be super important. So the more of that that you can do and networking, I think are going to help that educational component, and then hopefully create some buzz that you can you know, you can build on.
[00:50:06] Speaker 7: Thank you. I love that you said the social part. We are definitely tapping into that abuelita recipe. In fact, I had my mother-in-law in the kitchen and we filmed her talking through what Chicha Morada means to her and how it reminds her of growing up in Lima, having these house parties. And it actually did really well. And we saw that people want to connect with the brand that way. Definitely tapping into that.
[00:50:32] Ray Latif: Morya, I'm on your Instagram page right now. You were here at an event here at BevNET headquarters. I missed you. I was out of town that day and my goodness, it looks really great. Yeah, I can't believe this.
[00:50:44] Speaker 7: Yes, we stuffed all of our leftovers. We stuffed all the mini fridges everywhere and we were like, please, please, please try it and let us know what you think. Um, and you know, Wade, you mentioned word of mouth and just getting feedback. That's exactly what we've been doing throughout summer. Farmers markets, food festivals, any sampling events that I can get my hands into. I make a couple of hundred bottles. I schlep them in a little, you know, rollaway cooler and I go and talk to people and get feedback about the taste so we can understand how, what kind of a what kind of a road we're going to have in educating the consumer about this drink, but then also winning their heart. So I love that you both touched on that. And we missed you. I'm going to send you a box. I'm going to reach out to you after this. I need your address. I'd love to send you some.
[00:51:26] Ray Latif: Well, I would say that when you're ready to send products, please do. You don't have to rush it. I'll taste it eventually for sure. And at the fancy food show or the fancy winter fancy fair, I got to get that right. One other thing I wanted to touch on is, you know, this seems like a product, it seems like a beverage that goes well with food. You know, food service is a big opportunity, but, you know, you're not going to see the same velocities typically. Wade, what do you think about the food service opportunity for the Purple Drop?
[00:51:53] Wade Yenny: I think there's some definite tie-ins there. You know, certainly the ethnic component comes back up where, you know, there's some obvious tie-ins there. I think, to your point though, it's a Not my experience, right? So I know word of mouth as far as, you know, it can be a tough channel to break into. And typically outside of some local and, you know, some accounts that you can touch on yourself personally and hand deliver and things like that, it's hard to break into until you have a little bit more of a buzz going as far as, you know, as far as awareness to the brand and or the product itself. So I think it's a channel that probably makes sense down the road. It just might take a little bit more elbow grease to get it going.
[00:52:33] Speaker 7: Sure, sure. We actually did participate in a third year anniversary with a Peruvian restaurant in New York City recently, and we gave away sample bottles in the swag bags. And there might even be interest for our drink to be their go to because they do serve Chicha Morada, but they make it and you have to make it in these big pots and it takes time. So it may be more of a convenience thing for a Peruvian restaurant to get from us than to make it in-house. So, yeah, we're definitely open minded.
[00:53:02] Ray Latif: Well, Maria, I am really excited for the Purple Drop and for you and Roger. I feel like this has got some legs for sure. And, you know, you're based in Danbury, is that right?
[00:53:11] Speaker 7: Yes. Connecticut, yeah.
[00:53:12] Ray Latif: Well, hopefully you can join us at our BevNET Live New York event in 2026 and join us on stage as part of the New Beverage Showdown as well. I really think that it would be awesome for you to be there. I would love that.
[00:53:25] Speaker 7: I would love that. I'm signed up.
[00:53:26] Ray Latif: I'll be there. Let's work toward that. In the meantime, please stay in touch. If there's anything we can help with as you continue to build your brand, please let us know.
[00:53:36] Speaker 7: Thank you so much. I connected with you both on LinkedIn. I'll keep in touch.
[00:53:38] Ray Latif: I just connected with you as well. That was fantastic. Well, everyone should do that. Maria is right on top of things, as she should be for a cybersecurity expert.
[00:53:47] Speaker 7: Thank you both so much. I really appreciate the opportunity.
[00:53:49] Ray Latif: Thank you. Thank you. Wade, another great show. I love Elevator Talk so much. We get to meet really cool people who are doing really cool things and, you know, two soda brands, Lua Coffee brand, an ethnic beverage brand, but everyone came to the table, I think, with something new and interesting. I think that if there's one takeaway that you could share, you know, in terms of positives or potential challenges that these folks are facing, what would it be?
[00:54:18] Wade Yenny: Well, potential challenges and obviously we know this category, right? Just loosely speaking beverages, it's one of the most challenging categories in the store, but it also high risk, high reward, right? I mean, it has incredible velocity. So I think that's the challenge is understanding that this is a category that, you know, typically Rome wasn't built in a day and a big beverage brand wasn't either. So that's a challenge. I think what I liked about everyone we talked to today is the, push for innovation, the push for new, you know, because I talk about this all the time, innovations, this buzzword, what does it mean? What is it? But truly, I think with everyone we spoke to today, you can see some, I keep going back to that white space that they're filling. And there's, there's, there's something here, right? There's something that you know, isn't already existing on the shelf. It's not me too. It's, you know, uniqueness to the category. So I think if there's a light at the end of the tunnel on this one, it's simply that they're bringing some things to the table that aren't out there. And it's going to be really exciting to see, you know, at, in Marina Del Rey, how, how these, these folks perform, you know, in their, in what the reaction is, but then more importantly, as they get product in front of the decision makers in a retail environment, what that feedback is on,
[00:55:32] Ray Latif: um you know these items that they're bringing yeah all great points and uh you you've always made great points and you continue to make them on this show on your own show which is called cpg vibes folks if you haven't been tuning in on linkedin you should definitely check it out um what what episodes you're up to episode 187
[00:55:51] Wade Yenny: I was gonna say we're pushing 200 uh real quickly this week uh well I'm not gonna I'm not gonna share this week because we're gonna have a little bit of delay when we post this but we we've been talking to you know if you haven't um if you haven't tuned in uh you know Gavin Conklin my is my co-host we we talked to brands we talked to brokers, we talk to sales rep, you name it, we talk to it, and just really just trying to give back and educate and bring value to the community outside of just the day-to-day stuff that you read. It's just an hour of informal chat live on LinkedIn, but also uploaded to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.
[00:56:24] Ray Latif: Yeah, great show, great show. And of course, vDriven, a great partner to so many emerging brands. For folks who want to get in touch with you or your team at vDriven, what's the best way to do so?
[00:56:36] Wade Yenny: Anyway, LinkedIn, just search for me, Wade Yenny. You can go to vdriven.com, schedule a call. You'll see, you know, it'll pop up and ask you to reach out. So any way that's convenient for you, I'll be at Marina Del Rey for Nosh. I think we're still talking about BevNET that I might be there that for two, so I might be in LA for a week, who knows. But yeah, looking forward to connecting with people, however they choose to reach out.
[00:57:01] Ray Latif: Could be worse things than being in LA for a week, I would say.
[00:57:04] Wade Yenny: In December, especially.
[00:57:06] Ray Latif: Yeah, absolutely. Well, Wade, I hope you come to BevNET Live. I'm glad you're coming to Nosh Live. Best in class events in both cases. And for folks listening or watching, it's definitely a place, or those are places you definitely want to be if you're building a brand, because you're going to meet the people that you need to meet if you want to scale your businesses. That includes retailers, investors, and folks like Wade who just know these industries inside and out. So that's my pitch. And I know, Wade, you've been to our events in the past, so you could probably concur as well. But in the meantime, we need to do one more thing, which is change the monogram on your luggage. I don't know what your middle name is, but we need to put a G in there for goat. Wade Goat Yenny, so W-G-Y. I think that's appropriate at this point.
[00:57:51] Wade Yenny: Well, Ray, I always appreciate it. It's always a pleasure to connect with you. We don't do it often enough. I think when you sent the invite, I did the first show this year, 2025, and this is, I think, going to be the last show of 2025. So I'm looking forward to 2026 and beyond.
[00:58:07] Ray Latif: At the best bookend we could possibly ask for. We got, on the one hand, Wade Yenny to kick off the year, on the other, to finish the year. But I'll be knocking on your door for sure in 2026 asking you to come back. Always a pleasure. I'll be there. Thank you so much, Wade. And thank you to everyone who joined us on the show today. Thanks to everyone who tuned in on their podcast app or their computer, as it were. And thanks to our amazing team at BevNET, Nosh, and Taste Radio, the best in the business. Signing off for everyone, I'm Ray Latif, and we'll talk to you next time. VIP has quietly powered the beverage industry for more than 50 years, trusted by more than 2,800 distributors and 1,400 suppliers. They have defined this industry time and again, and in this era of AI, they're leading the way. Today, we're joined by VIP CEO Andrew Kriznis and Head of Sales Lucinda Awkwot to discuss where the industry is headed and what customers can expect next. Andrew, it's great to see you. How are you? Good. Thanks for having me, Ray. Lucinda, how are you?
[00:59:18] Speaker 6: So great. Excited to be here.
[00:59:20] Ray Latif: Yes. And our audience is excited to hear about VIP's capabilities with AI because it is a topic that is top of mind for so many founders at this point. Andrew, as I mentioned, VIP has been around for over 50 years. Your background is pretty interesting because you bring so much to the table as CEO. How did you come to VIP?
[00:59:41] Speaker 5: Yeah, great question, Ray. And I think it does go back to the legacy of VIP. So I'm incredibly passionate about the beverage and alcohol industry, the broader CPG industry as a whole. So I spent the last 12 years plus working at Nielsen IQ, working with many of the suppliers that could be listening to this, distributors and retailers. It was about five years ago that I first interacted with VIP and it's actually a partner to Nielsen IQ. And so complimentary partnership was created and I got to know the company a little bit. I got to see the value of what VIP creates in the industry and how it helps support the three-tier system. And I was just blown away also by the people. by just the caliber of the talent, how respected they were in the industry, how much knowledge they had across the three tier system. And so once I started to get to know the company a bit more, I saw just the opportunity for the technology to do so much more across the industry. And with AI, as we were talking about becoming really important and accelerating every day, every week. I started to realize it's a huge moment for AI and technology and more investment to come into VIP, really help our clients, help the suppliers, help the distributors and retailers, and transform how operations and the day-to-day work is getting done. So I just saw that as a great opportunity, both in the technology and AI side, leveraging all of my data background and knowledge in the industry, but then joining a group that has an amazing culture, an amazing team, and a ton of passion behind it.
[01:01:00] Ray Latif: Lucinda, when you came to VIP, you also came with a ton of experience. Just talk a bit about your background in this industry.
[01:01:08] Speaker 6: Yeah, thanks, Ray. So I like to say I was born and raised in the beer business, but I got here as soon as I could. Started when I was 21 with Boston Beer Company. I've worked in all three tiers of the three-tier supply chain over the last 20 years. And I showed up to the first day to the VIP office here in Burlington, and I felt like I should be asking for autographs because VIP is the only set of data and the only set of tools that I've ever used on any of the three tiers. So it was really remarkable to see the team of people that has built such an incredible organization and really built from the ground up over the past 50 plus years that VIPs existed. So I'm honored to be here, a part of the team now to help carry the sales team into the future with all this new, authentic work that we're going to talk about.
[01:01:54] Ray Latif: Andrew, let's just start off by talking about where the beverage industry is headed right now in broad terms and why AI is such a critical strategic investment for founders and businesses.
[01:02:03] Speaker 5: You know, I think about whether you're a small supplier or distributor or a large supplier, you know, the beverage alcohol space. You could be only have a few people at your company or hundreds at the end of the day, everyone's looking for efficiency. Whether you're three people within your company, you're stretching yourself to try to do five jobs. Or again, you're a larger company with maybe 10 people in the finance department. You're all trying to find better ways to do what you're doing so you can drive more product to consumers. So AI is just coming at this perfect moment over the last six to 12 months where everyone needs it. Everyone needs it for similar reasons, for inefficiencies, whether it's helping you run some reporting, it's helping you with pricing, it's helping you optimize something. At the end of the day, there's never enough hands and arms within a company when you're building a brand. And I've experienced that, you know, working with hundreds and hundreds of founders over the last 12 years in my past role with Nielsen IQ. And I see that with VIP. So I think all of the industry, both suppliers, distributors, retailers, are looking at AI to try to understand how can I drive more efficiency? How can I drive a better delivery of my service or product to the end customer? And how can I do it in a way that's going to set me up for success? But now many people are taking it in different ways. You know, AI isn't something that's just intuitive and you throw on a chat bot and all of a sudden you're up and running. So it's really interesting to see how suppliers are leveraging AI, how distributors are leveraging AI, retailers, et cetera. And there's some fun nuances between those three.
[01:03:26] Ray Latif: When it comes to spending money on AI or otherwise, founders want to see a return on investment. And I'm curious about how you measure return on investment when it comes to AI. And also, there's so much hype about AI at this point. Where does hype meet reality? Lucinda, can you tackle both questions for me?
[01:03:45] Speaker 6: Yeah, great questions. So I think I'll tackle the ROI question first, because I think it will address the buzzword as well. But I think when you think about AI, I was thinking back to all these different technological advances and how they've impacted the industry all the way back to when we used to have rolls of quarters to get on the payphone. And then all of a sudden, cell phones helped to make us more efficient. Same thing with printers and then the internet. I think of AI in the same way. It will give us the ability to enable all of our teams to be that much faster, that much smarter, smarter by way of better insights from the data. So if we're able to take a sales report, a sales ranker, and extract out the insights that much faster and distill down to the actual accounts we should be spending our time in, that to me is an instant ROI. There's also back of house applications. We think we talked with our distributors about some of the features that are most important to them as we're building out our new agentic platform. And it's things like avoiding the fat finger on the order. We don't want 10, we want one. We don't want 100, we want 10. And so giving the teams the ability to capture those things in advance, I think is where we see the ROI. It also empowers our retailers to make better orders. So think of predictive ordering in an e-commerce platform like Connect. There is so many great things that we can do to empower across all three of the tiers using all of our agentic features that we have in place now. So if I'm a retailer, if I'm a distributor, if I'm a supplier, that's how I think about the ROI. And it really enables the humans to be better at their jobs. So that in itself, I think is the buzz. I encourage people to think about AI as more of a tool and a way to do their business, a way to go about seeking the outcomes they're looking for versus this buzzword of a tool. And I think when we all begin to embrace it much more, we'll see that firsthand as well.
[01:05:39] Ray Latif: Obviously, technology is moving faster than it ever has before. And it's incumbent upon VIP to provide technology that is keeping up with the times or in this case, keeping up by the day.
[01:05:49] Speaker 5: Yeah, I think you're spot on with it's evolving every day, every week, new models come out, Babel 5 came out for the second time. So it's a constant. It's been great. I've had a few conversations just recently with some distributors and suppliers. And when we talk about the investments, one of the things that came out clearly from our clients was They are interested, they are getting pressure to use AI. And so initially, you know, whether you're a founder on this call, a supplier or distributor, the thought process was, let's just take Jett, GPT, let's take Claude, let's just turn it on for everyone. And like, let's go get some insights. And you can get some gains and insights there. But ultimately, those clients came to us and said, hey, for us really to take advantage of this new technology and this capability, we need VIP. We need VIP to do this within all the business processes because VIP is so foundational to the core operations, whether you're a distributor, whether you're on the supplier side, looking at your inventory and depletions. And so that's where we took it upon ourselves to say, let's look at the marketplace. Let's look at all the different providers out there and take a hard look at ourselves. And we made the decision to make a really sizable, significant investment into a new architecture with AI and an agentic first decision. And what that allows us to do is actually create not just agents and AI on top of legacy products, which again, that still adds some value, but it doesn't change the game. And so we said, let's go down the path of actually building for the next several years, not for the next two months or three months, because a new model is to proceed something, but we need to have a new foundation. So VIPs made the biggest investment or one of the biggest investments we've ever made as a company. And that's going to allow us to have a magentic first platform, bring in many different types of data and create agents on top that again, aren't just giving you some insights, but I like to say are doing work. They're doing work for you as a supplier. They're actually making decisions on your behalf within certain guardrails. And then they're able to communicate for you. If you're a supplier, actually having these agents do work for you, communicate to your distributors, to your trading partners on your behalf. Again, I go back to my first point. Everyone needs more arms and hands, right? You never have enough people when you're a small player or a large player. And so actually being able to do some of that work, communicate digitally to distributors, whether it's pricing, whether it's something related to inventory, whether it's shipments. And likewise, distributors having agents that can interpret and engage and make decisions on their behalf and then communicate to their trading partners. That's where we're going as VIP with AI. We think we play a really central role into that core operational element of how the three tier system works. But we were also cognizant that that takes real investment. It's not just lipstick on an existing product and putting in a chat bot and saying, oh, everything's AI. It's really looking at the foundation of what's needed So much has changed just in the last six months, where whether you're a software or data company, what you had built maybe two years ago, even 12 months ago, almost becomes irrelevant from an architectural standpoint, just because the last six months. So that level of investment is something we're fully driving towards and working with a lot of clients on both the distributor and supplier side of how we bring this new platform to life. And at the same time, though, we're still investing in our existing products. That is not stopping. So I think of it from a VIP standpoint, as we're going down both paths, we're investing in existing products, putting AI on top, kind of what I was mentioning with many others in the industry. But we're also going after this whole new architecture and whole new platform. And that's what's really required long term of the three tier system.
[01:09:13] Ray Latif: Whenever I talk to founders, operators about who they choose their partners, it really comes down to trust. And I think when you're talking about AI and the evolution of this technology, it's really important to trust your partner. And it seems like the level of expertise that you guys can provide to companies is just unmatched at this point. So I highly encourage folks to get in touch with the team at VIP. Lucinda, what's the best way to do so?
[01:09:41] Speaker 6: Yeah, thanks, Ray. We are so excited to hear from all our customers. We're getting questions every day, and I do think the best way to reach out to us is vipinsights.com. And go and submit a form, request a demo, send in a question, and we will be able to get back to you. But our sales team is talking with all of our customers all day every day about this, and we're really excited to bring everyone more.
[01:10:02] Ray Latif: Outstanding. Well, Andrew, Lucinda, thank you so much for taking the time. I'm really excited for the future of AI and VIP's ability to help companies address this technology in a really effective way. So thanks again, and let's definitely stay in touch. Great. Thanks for having us, Ray.
[01:10:17] Speaker 6: Thank you, Ray.
