[00:00:10] Ray Latif: Hey folks, thanks for tuning in to Taste Radio, the number one podcast for the food and beverage industry. I'm Ray Latif, the editor and producer of Taste Radio, and I'm with my BevNET and Nosh colleagues, John Craven, Jacqui Brugliera, and Mike Schneider. Just a reminder, if you like what you hear on Taste Radio, please share the podcast with friends and colleagues. And of course, we would love it if you could review us on the Apple Podcasts app or your listening platform of choice. Anyone here a country music fan? Crickets. Crickets.
[00:00:49] Taste Radio: Do Silver Juice count? I love Silver Juice, great band. Silver Juice, I don't know, never heard of them. I think they're all country. And Johnny Cash, I love Johnny Cash Ray. Okay. Yeah, more like a folk indie person. So we're Country Curious.
[00:01:08] Honest Tea: We like to dabble.
[00:01:09] Ray Latif: We dabble. I never thought I'd hear the phrase Country Curious before, but Country Curious. Thanks, Mike Is random. I have never been a country music fan. I think the older like Johnny Cash and stuff like that. Yeah. OK. Yeah. But I became one this past week because I interviewed Brad Paisley. Brad Paisley is a country music megastar. I have heard of him. He's also the founder of a bourbon brand called American Highway Reserve. And this is the second bottling of this brand. Really interesting story behind it. He partnered with Bardstown Bourbon Company to produce this product, to produce this brand. And I interviewed him for Taste Radio. That interview will appear in an episode next week. It's a story I wasn't expecting to hear because I was expecting like, I guess the stereotypical kind of country music story that's associated with this brand is totally not that. So exciting stuff. Really encourage folks to tune in and listen to that one. Maybe you'll become a country music fan as well. Who knows?
[00:02:12] Taste Radio: Jackie's added another trophy to the pile too, right? Did you know about that? I saw that on Instagram. This looks like a totally different sport though.
[00:02:20] Honest Tea: Yes.
[00:02:21] Taste Radio: Jackie was playing Komogi this time.
[00:02:23] Honest Tea: Yeah, so this weekend I had a big Gaelic sports tournament. I played both Gaelic football in Komogi and this time around I brought home the trophy for Komogi, which is a stick sport. You have a stick called a hurl and there's a lot of different skills that go into it, but it was a fun weekend. We had teams from all over the US come to San Diego to compete. A lot of people from Ireland flew over and from New York and Canada. So it was really good. I have a couple bruises. video, but hit by a hurler too, but it was worth it.
[00:03:01] Ray Latif: You know, it's funny, Jackie, I have a couple of bruises myself, but it's because I tripped over and fell like an old man. It wasn't because I was playing a competitive sport.
[00:03:07] Honest Tea: You got to come up with a better story.
[00:03:10] Ray Latif: Too much of that, uh, that new bourbon you got there, Ray? Hold on, I'll fly the stairs. It's okay. Nicely done. No, folks, it wasn't from the bourbon. It wasn't from Brad Paisley's bourbon. I wouldn't sully it like that. No. No, well, congratulations, Jackie. I saw you drinking out of the trophy. What was in there? Probably the bourbon. What was that beverage that you were drinking? Oh my goodness.
[00:03:33] Honest Tea: I was drinking a full trophy of bourbon.
[00:03:35] Taste Radio: What was it, Risa Nitro?
[00:03:37] Honest Tea: Yeah, it was, yeah, some cold brew coffee at nine o'clock at night. Right. Yeah, it was some Irish beer, actually. So it was, I think it was Smithix. Smithix. Smithix.
[00:03:54] Ray Latif: Smithix. That's good stuff. I haven't had a Smithix in a while. That used to be on tap, like everywhere in Boston. It's a little bit harder to find nowadays, though. Yeah. Well, a brand that you could typically find across the United States is Honest Tea. That may not be the case much longer because the Coca-Cola company, the owner of Honest Tea, is discontinuing the brand. They are keeping the Honest Kids brand, which is a pretty strong one and growing at a pretty healthy clip. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for Honest Tea. which is part of the reason why Coke is discontinuing the brand. You know, it's funny, when I started at BevNET, it was in 2011, my first day was March 1st of 2011, and that was the day that Coke announced that it was fully acquiring Honesty. It was a great day for obviously Seth Goldman and Barry Nailbuff, the co-founders, but also validating for a lot of early stage and emerging brands that saw this as a victory. Also for BevNET, right? It's a great day for BevNET. It was a great day for BevNET as well. I like it. I like where you're going with that, Mike. But yeah, I mean, I think, you know, it proved out that you can create something that's better for you and healthy, organic, and that strategists would be interested in that type of brand. Now, May 23rd, 2022, 11 years later, Is that still the case? Honest Tea is the latest healthy or better for you brands that Coke has discontinued in recent months. That list includes Odwalla and Zico. John Craven, I mean, you know, is this a is this a warning sign for early stage brands?
[00:05:32] Bang Energy: Uh, no, I don't think so. Quite the opposite. Anytime something like this happens. I mean, obviously there are dollars out there that are being spent on honest right now that are going to go somewhere else. And, you know, Coke would for sure love those dollars to just go right on over to gold peak or PC, but they're not all going to do that. And, you know, I think that's something that creates new opportunity for startups who want to fill that void. Honest Tea is a brand that I've known those guys since the brand's inception and they were a pioneer in the organic beverage space, really the organic food and beverage space. And I think that brand stands for something quite different than Gold Peak or Peace Tea. the buyers of an organic iced tea are probably just going to look elsewhere. They're not going to go drink a Gold Peak. Again, I think this is something that it's sad just in the history of the beverage industry to see a brand that I think has been successful and has been such a good roadmap for other companies that have started up all the way down to the book that Seth and Barry wrote mission in a bottle. Yeah, it's kind of a bummer to see the book close, so to speak on on this. But again, I think it'll it'll be fine and it'll be something that, you know, we'll see some new startups out of it, see some new contenders. So that's always exciting. And, you know, I think this will provide growth to other, you know, RTDT companies that are out there.
[00:07:15] Ray Latif: Yeah, you know, when I heard the news, I immediately thought of a brand that we know called Shaka Tea. And Shaka Tea makes herbal zero calorie teas that are really beautiful in package, in formulation. And that company was actually acquired by Kings Hawaiian, the Hawaiian roll company, the Hawaiian bread company. And so I was thinking, I was like, hmm, You know, for every story that we hear about something like honesty or for every story that we hear about brand being discontinued, there are good stories that are happening with emerging brands like Ashoka. which are being validated in that, you know, there are bigger companies out there, strategic companies out there that are looking to incorporate them into their portfolio. So I think, you know, John, you make a really good point about, well, you know, with Honest disappearing from shelves, that'll create more shelf space for brands like Shaka and others.
[00:08:13] Taste Radio: You also mentioned Odwalla, Ray, a brand that I used to love to crush along with Fresh Samantha, which became part of Odwalla at one point. But the interesting thing about Odwalla is that if you look at Better For You, the idea of Better For You consistently changes. And if brands don't evolve, well, if they don't evolve with the definition, then they're not considered better for you anymore. Like there was a time when Odwalla, which had a lot of sugar and was ridiculously delicious, was better for you than the other things on the market. I mean, even the Nantucket Nectars of the world and the Snapples of the world were better for you at one point. They got replaced by other better for you options and they didn't evolve.
[00:08:54] Honest Tea: Yeah, I think like Coke saw that there's a lot of competition in the space and we've seen that their strategy has evolved and they're looking at, you know, just doubling down on their top performers rather than looking at, you know, what's the better for you option or what's the organic option
[00:09:11] Bang Energy: Well, look, I think big CPG is, quite frankly, just not set up to incubate sub-billion dollar brands, which is why we've seen for the better part of two decades at this point, if not longer, steady stream of acquisitions from big CPG. hope that they get a brand that will simply cross the billion dollar mark by, you know, having better distribution and better points of retail. And, you know, some brands that works out and others, it doesn't. And I think even, you know, again, as you guys pointed out, they feel like they see signs of that with, with honest kids and with honesty, it's kind of like they have too many horses in that race right now. So unfortunate, but just part of how this stuff works, so.
[00:10:05] Ray Latif: And it's not uncommon, you know, for a big company to buy a brand and then discontinue it or sell it back to the founder. And we've seen that a few times as well, specifically in the case of Zico selling it back to Mark Rampolla and his team at Powerplant. That's not going to be the case with Honest Tea, though. They are keeping the brand. They're using it for licensing deals as well. So no selling back to Seth Goldman or Barry Nailbuff. Honesty will be discontinued. Its legacy will live on for sure. In some ways, it's inspiring. In some ways, it's disappointing. But, you know, we'll continue to follow how things pan out. Read our coverage on BevNET.com about Koch's decision and the reaction from Seth, Barry and other folks in the industry affected by Koch's move.
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[00:11:39] Ray Latif: Also on BevNET's coverage of Starbucks' decision to unload Evolution Fresh, a brand it acquired also in 2011. Evolution Fresh was acquired by Bolthouse Farms, which apparently has big plans for the cold press juice brand. I love Evolution Fresh. I'm glad it's still going to stay on the market. And I'm glad that Bolthouse Farms going to be ramping up distribution, as they noted in the article. Read all about that deal on BevNET as well. Now, we talked about an organic tea brand. We talked about an organic juice brand and Evolution Fresh. We might as well talk about a highly caffeinated energy drink brand. I mean, that's an easy segue, right? Yeah, huge. Let's talk about Bang. And the reason we're talking about Bang is because the founder and CEO, Jack Awok, will be joining us on stage at BevNET Live. This is incredible. This is really exciting stuff. He's going to be on stage on Wednesday, June 15th. Speaking with our very own Jeffrey Klineman, you know, Bang is pretty tight lipped about their business strategy and, you know, the inner workings of that company. So this is this is a pretty big deal.
[00:12:54] Honest Tea: Yeah, I think people in the audience will really find it interesting to hear, you know, how has Bain had such outrageous growth and how have they carved out a niche and, you know, this very competitive energy category? I mean, wild growth, so.
[00:13:13] Taste Radio: Wild growth, wild growth, wild interview. I cannot wait until Jeffrey Klineman sits down with with Jack Owag. I have no idea what he's going to say.
[00:13:23] Ray Latif: He has character. Well, I mean, it is pretty amazing when you do look at Bang, because they were not part of the sort of the big three of energy as it had been for the longest time, Monster, Red Bull, and Rockstar. And Bang somehow, you know, elevated itself not only into that conversation, but into a real player that has had real influence on the direction of the energy drink category. So I'm sure we're gonna be talking about that on stage, exciting stuff. If you want to be there in New York City with us, go to bevnetlive.com and register. It's really one you can't miss. I also feel like you can't miss Nosh Live as well. And that's not just because Nosh Live is an awesome event and a critical mass, as I always like to call it, for the food industry. It's because we have some of the best speakers out of any conference in the food industry. That includes top executives from Whole Foods and Kroger. Jackie, who are these people and why should people be attending? I mean, obviously it's a no-brainer to attend, but why is it so critical to hear from these folks?
[00:14:25] Honest Tea: Yeah, so I mean, we have Kroger and Whole Foods, two very important retailers. And Kroger is going to be diving into consumer behavior, looking at just what are some buying behaviors, some demographics, some key indicators for brands that can help them succeed in the retailer. And then Whole Foods will be talking about how do you create a win-win relationship with a retailer? I mean, you're gonna get on shelves and then how do you succeed and continue to succeed on shelves and make sure that you have a great partnership with that retailer.
[00:15:02] Taste Radio: There are so many brands, particularly early stage brands that, you know, they're so focused on getting on shelf that they forget to plan for what happens once they do. So this is, I can't miss talk.
[00:15:14] Ray Latif: I would actually say that if you're a beverage company or a beverage brand, you might want to attend Nosh Live as well if you want to hear from these folks as well. I mean, I know it's a food conference, but hey, if the folks from Whole Foods and Kroger are telling you what to do to get on shelf and what to do to scale at their locations, hey, I mean, maybe it's a good conference to attend. If you're going to be in New York all week, might as well.
[00:15:34] Honest Tea: Yeah, come hang with us for four days.
[00:15:38] Ray Latif: That should be our new tagline. Come hang with us. Good times. But Jackie, I mean, I make light of it, but it's a good point because a lot of folks reach out to us and they say, hey, would you be able to introduce me to an investor or distributor or retail? Do you have a contact here or there? But when we're at the event and surrounded by these people, if you come up to us and just engage in a conversation, just say, hi, I was looking to speak with this person or that person. Can you make that intro? We're there. And we're happy to do that. We're happy to do whatever we can to make those connections that'll help you and your brand grow. So being there in person, it's a perfect opportunity to do those things. You know, email, phone calls and stuff like that. Yeah, sure, you can do that as well. But if the person you wanna talk to, and you've been wanting to talk to for months, and I'm not talking about us, I'm talking, you know, is a retailer, is an investor, and you just need that one little introduction, we're happy to make that intro. It's on, it's happening.
[00:16:33] Honest Tea: We're the matchmakers.
[00:16:34] Ray Latif: There you go. That's the new tagline. We're the matchmakers. I like that. Great. You know, people always ask me, what's the one thing you need to bring to BevNET Live or Nosh Live? It's hard to say. I think I usually bring, this is not because I have halitosis. It's just because I always want to have fresh breath. These Listerine breath strips, you know, those are always helpful in case, you know, you might've just eaten something garlicky and you are making an intro. If you have bad breath, that intro is not going to go very well.
[00:16:59] Taste Radio: Anyway, I have another idea for something you can bring. Just bring the questions that are keeping you up at night. It doesn't matter what stage company you are. Bring those questions and there will be an expert there that has an answer for you. And if they don't have an answer for you, they're going to know who has the answer. We haven't found a question that we can't answer yet.
[00:17:19] Honest Tea: And also to help you prep, we do have the full list of registered companies that are coming to both BevNetLive and NoshLive. So you can figure out who do you want to meet, get that list going, and then come to the event and ask us to meet them.
[00:17:33] Ray Latif: All good answers. My answer was not either of those, but I'm glad you brought them up. My answer was going to be, my new answer anyway, was going to be skinny dipped almonds. They have a new strawberry lemonade variety. Skinny dipped is a maker of dipped nuts, particularly known for their almonds. They're very thinly coated with, I don't want to call it a frosting, but it's like, it's just a thin, I don't know, thinly dipped almonds is the best way I can describe it. They have a yogurt coating. It's sweet, but not too sweet. As I mentioned, they had this new strawberry lemonade variety that just dropped. Kudos to Breezy Griffith, the co-founder and CEO and her team for creating yet another incredible flavor in their portfolio of dipped almonds.
[00:18:15] Taste Radio: I thought you were talking about things that are Essential Travel bring to BevNetLibrary, not things that are Essential Travel bring anywhere, especially to the office.
[00:18:24] Ray Latif: They, you know, they only sent me one bag. If they had sent me two bags, perhaps maybe I would have brought the second bag over. John Craven is shaking his head. You'll get yours. Don't worry.
[00:18:37] Bang Energy: Just walks around with a bag of chocolate covered nuts. It's all pumpkin. bag of delicious. You're like one hand shoving chocolate covered nuts in your mouth, immediately glycerine breath strips right after each one.
[00:18:52] Ray Latif: That combo though.
[00:18:54] Bang Energy: It's cool.
[00:18:54] Ray Latif: These are strawberry lemonade flavors. So if I had a strawberry lemonade breath, that would actually not be so bad, right?
[00:18:59] Honest Tea: Maybe.
[00:19:01] Ray Latif: Maybe. I should mention breath again on the rest of the list. This is getting weird.
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[00:19:57] Ray Latif: Also want to bring up a brand that I posted on Instagram a couple of weeks back, and that's a brand called Tipsy Lady. Tipsy Lady is a maker of ready-to-drink cocktails. They have three varieties. The one I'm holding in my hand is their Rum Punch variety. I did actually find this in the cooler at BevNET headquarters, and then the fine folks from Tipsy Lady sent me a few more. This is one of the best ready-to-drink cocktails that I've ever had. First of all, it's a Rum Punch, and you just don't see too many of these on the market. I don't know, I don't want to call it unique, but it's just not something you see from that set, from that segment. The formulation of it is so easy to drink. You wouldn't know if it's 12% alcohol by volume, which I guess is a good and maybe somewhat challenging thing. But in terms of as we're coming up into the summertime, this is on ice, as good as And Drinks is going to get. Whether you're out and about on a roof deck at the beach, really, really well done, Tipsy Lady. And thank you so much for sending me some samples.
[00:20:57] Bang Energy: We got the new Madre Mezcal Desert Water over here. Oh, yeah. Got a bunch of flavors, including this mushroom, sage, and honey variety. Definitely going to be interesting. Mezcal-based, these are 5% ABV. And if they've got a little bit of Madre Mezcal in there, I'm sure they're going to be great.
[00:21:21] Taste Radio: I definitely would skip Accidental Dry June for some new Madre Mezcal products.
[00:21:26] Ray Latif: Nice. And those are in 12-ounce standard cans. I forgot to mention that Tipsy Lady products are canned in 200-milliliter packages, which I also feel Mike Is a perfect little can for taking on the go.
[00:21:40] Bang Energy: Also got a couple new cannabis beverages over here. One is from California called Artet, which is a mango ginger spritz. Posted a picture of this one on Twitter, which got some rave reviews from people who've tried this. And then also the Massachusetts brand Levia has a new limited time dragon fruit flavor. Is there a dragon on that can?
[00:22:06] Taste Radio: I feel like I've seen that dragon before after a couple of gummies.
[00:22:09] Bang Energy: Yeah, there's a metallic, uh, kind of dragon-looking thing on the front, yes.
[00:22:14] Ray Latif: It looked like a Tyrannosaurus Rex at first, at a first glance, but yeah, that is a dragon. Staying on the beverage front, I just got sent some Reveal. Reveal is a maker of avocado Seed Brew. They come in these 12-ounce glass bottles. The one I'm holding in my hand is their grapefruit lavender flavor. It notes on the bottle, there's a little sticker on here that says, new improved flavor. Shake well before drinking, refrigerate after opening. I have not refrigerated this ahead of time, but I'm going to open this up and try some. That's really delicious. There's a ton of grapefruit flavor on this, and I'm not really sure what the functional benefit of avocado seed is. I should probably read more about it. Oh, it says it right on the side panel here. It says aids proper digestion, boosts immunity, and prevents bloating. It also fights free radicals. The company reveal is woman-owned, minority-owned, and eco-conscious, according to the label, and the entire product only contains 12 calories per 12-ounce bottle. Nicely done. Zero grams of added sugar, only one gram of total sugar in the bottle. Wow, you would never know. Well done.
[00:23:21] Honest Tea: I also have a line of beverages called Frescos, and they are a line of agua frescas with pure fruit juice, only three ingredients, and low sugar. I think it's really interesting because on the front of the can, you'll see that they really highlight the main ingredients. pamaica, tamarindo, maracuya. And some of these ingredients, I think, to the mainstream consumer, there's not a whole bunch of education around. They're definitely like Latin American flavors and ingredients, but they do a good job of actually putting some more information on the side of the can, telling you about that specific ingredient and its importance to the culture and also, you know, what kind of ingredient it's similar to. So like, for example, Maricoya is also known as passion fruit. I had to read it because I was like, I don't know what this is. So this is for me, this little sidebars for my own education. And they're based out of Boulder, Colorado. And I think that the branding is fun. I think it's interesting that they put the website right at the top of their can, which you can't miss. Cool new brand coming out of Colorado.
[00:24:34] Bang Energy: Yeah, those are we got those here as well. Super good, really fresh taste of them.
[00:24:41] Taste Radio: This week I got to try a new product called Broc Shot, which is interesting product. It comes in like a tiny little container that, it's a beauty and wellness shot. So it comes in this tiny container that Carl from Doozy Pots said looks like a deodorant container, but it's like this cute little container and you have to push on the lid to break a seal that jettisons a powder into the liquid, then you shake it up And Drinks it. Well, first time I pushed, It failed, so I thought, broccoli water, interesting. It's a water that's infused with broccoli. So I was like, oh, broccoli water, what's this doing for me? So it failed the first time, but then the second time I got it to work, pouch came out, it's really tasty, it's interesting, it's got probiotics, it's got collagen, and you're supposed to do it sort of as a daily shot, and once you take 10, you get some benefits from it. So pretty interesting product. BrockShot. BrockShot. Also this week, got to try another from the very impressive cake series that Honey Mama's has put out, the carrot cake. Just incredible. I love carrot cake. If you love carrot cake, you'll love Honey Mama's carrot cake. I hate birthday cake flavored everything, and I love Honey Mama's birthday cake. The chocolate cake, the birthday cake, the carrot cake, all incredible. Shocking from Honey Mama, right? If you want to try the Honey Mama carrot cake, you can find it now at Target. Congratulations, Christy and the team, for being in Target. Nice. John's eating it right now. What do you think?
[00:26:17] Bang Energy: Pretty good. Yeah. Doesn't suck. D-N-S. Gotta keep chewing. No more words.
[00:26:27] Honest Tea: Perfectly timed.
[00:26:29] Ray Latif: Couple more brands I want to mention real quick. Unique Belgique. These folks make these really delicious pearl sugar Belgian waffles. They come individually wrapped in plastic. You know, you keep seeing more and more Belgian waffles, like packaged Belgian waffles, come to market. These are really tasty. They're not low in calorie or low in sugar, as you might expect, but that's kind of what you want. You don't want a high-calorie, high-sugar waffle, but that's what you should have with some of these products. I mean, this is the more traditional variety. It's made with no GMOs, made with cage-free eggs, and there's no syrup that you need to add to this. It's already sweet enough. I warm these up in the toaster oven, and it is a phenomenal snack. I can't eat the entire thing. I usually eat about half or a quarter of it, but if you put half of it in your refrigerator and eat half of it now, easy way to have a nice, tasty snack. Also love these organic bonbons from Blissfully Better. These are dark chocolate-covered bonbons. The one I'm holding in my hand is their sea salt caramel variety. It's 72% cacao or made with 72% cacao, USA organic, non-GMO verified, and 100 calories per 1.6-ounce pouch. Really good stuff. Lastly, shout out to the team at Momofuku, in particular Zoe Feldman, who is the GM of Consumer at Momofuku, the globally renowned restaurant chain launched by David Chang. Zoe Feldman, who we sat down with for an interview on Taste Radio a couple of weeks back, as I mentioned, He's the GM of consumer previously at Chobani, before that at PepsiCo. That is a dynamite listen. And one of the ones that I feel like it can't miss for any entrepreneur that is looking to understand how a modern food company is built from the ground up. So please take a listen if you haven't already.
[00:28:29] Taste Radio: for the kids out there. Dynamite is from the 70s and it means cool and awesome.
[00:28:35] Ray Latif: Yeah, I didn't think about that, huh? Dynamite as a descriptor.
[00:28:39] Taste Radio: Dynamite, remember that?
[00:28:42] SPEAKER_??: Dynamite.
[00:28:43] Ray Latif: All right, wrapping up a dynamite episode. Thank you so much to everyone who is listening. As always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please send us an email to ask at Taste Radio. On behalf of the entire Taste Radio team, thank you for listening, and we will see you at Nosh Live and BevNET Live in New York City.
