[00:00:00] Ad Read: This episode is sponsored by PacTec, delivering beverage multi-packing you can trust. PacTec's handles are made from 100% recycled plastic and are fully recyclable, helping beverage brands reduce waste and support a circular economy. With a minimalist design, durable performance that prevents product loss, waterproof functionality, and custom color options, PacTec keeps products secure while letting your brand shine on shelf. Trusted by leading beverage brands globally. Learn more at Taste Radio forward slash PACKTECH.
[00:00:52] Ray Latif: Hello, and thanks for tuning into Taste Radio, the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food or beverage. I'm Ray Latif, the editor and producer of Taste Radio. And I'm here with my co-hosts, John Craven, Jacqui Brugliera, and Mike Schneider. We are here in San Diego for the Winter Fancy Fair. And I, for one, am a very happy man. John, how you feel? great right now that we're sitting down. Yes, indeed. We've been walking the show floor for two days now, seeing some pretty awesome brands and eating a lot of really cool snacks, drinking some good Bev's. We have a bunch on the table here, but before we get started, I want to note that this is the coolest trade show we've ever been to because it's a booth that we're sitting. It's our booth at a trade show.
[00:01:39] John Craven: Yeah, this is our little footprint. It's been awesome to have people over, chat with them, do Elevator Toll Booth meet and greet. Yes. Yeah.
[00:01:47] Ray Latif: I think people are not only happy to see us, but some people who don't know about BevNET CPG Media are like, what's BevNET CPG Media? And then we're like, it's BevNET, it's Nosh, it's BrewBounce, Taste Radio, it's Elevator Talk. It's all these really cool things. Speaking of Elevator Talk, it's been awesome to see Jackie and the team filming really short, well, relatively short Instagram and TikTok videos highlighting some of the brands and founders that are here. What's it like 20, 25 or so?
[00:02:12] John Craven: Yeah. Yeah. We've done a lot. It's been great. They've been coming up. They've been wanting to share their story. Keep telling them. It's all about the reps. You want to get your experience, you want to practice, and it's not live. So they had multiple attempts.
[00:02:24] Ad Read: Yeah.
[00:02:24] John Craven: You should see Jackie coaching them. There's like practice sessions that are happening before. She's like, get the reps in.
[00:02:27] Ad Read: Come on, get the reps in.
[00:02:28] John Craven: You got this. Go again. Go again.
[00:02:30] Ray Latif: Yeah. Well, you know, you only get one chance to make a good first impression with an investor. So you might as well get those reps out of the way here. Yeah. So I think everyone will want to watch these videos and you can do so by following us on the gram or the talk. Nobody calls it the Toll Booth they? You do. You do. I just invented a new thing, the Toll Booth anyway. It's the tic-tac. It's the tic-tac, yeah. So probably like one a day over the next month, which is going to be pretty great. Yeah, we have a lot. By the time we're done, it's going to be Expo West. Ready to find the social media strategy, by the way. You want Expo West? Me? Yeah, you. Going straight there now. It's got to get there early, right?
[00:03:07] John Craven: Heading straight to Anaheim.
[00:03:08] Ray Latif: It seems like we've been in Southern California, at least the East Coast folks, a lot. We're here less than a month from our LA events. It's amazing what airplanes can do, right? Yes. Yeah. So I can't go any further without talking about Salty. Yeah. So S-O-L-T-I, everyone knows this brand. They make wellness shots, they make wellness drinks. They've been giving out tons and tons of shots to everyone here.
[00:03:31] Ad Read: Thank goodness.
[00:03:32] Ray Latif: At the Winter Fancy Fair. And I swear, I just can't get enough of these things. Like their turmeric shot is so delicious. And I've been just crushing them left and right. And so Sean from their team came over with four of their ginger super shots. Yeah. I'm going to share one with everyone. You know, this is a BevNET approved level of ginger. Yes, it is very much so.
[00:03:55] John Craven: Yeah. They had some new shots too, like a mental clarity shot. I think it was super boost and a couple others. So lots of additional innovation. I went with raspberry. Yeah, the raspberry.
[00:04:05] Ray Latif: And the thing is with this, you know, sometimes ginger shots can really just ruin you. And sometimes it's good to be ruined, you know, because you really want to get that, that feeling of wellness. But these are really palatable. And I can see why, you know, Starbucks wanted these kinds of products in their stores because they don't taste overwhelming, especially for if you're expecting like a Ginger Boost, but you just don't want to be overwhelmed by it.
[00:04:30] John Craven: Slapped in the face.
[00:04:31] Ray Latif: Yeah, exactly.
[00:04:33] John Craven: Or have your throat burned. Yeah. I like the throat burn. Come on. I like it too. There is a little bit of a burn. There is a place where there's too much. You can get, like, actually have your throat burned by ginger.
[00:04:45] Ray Latif: Absolutely. So in one of the sections of the show that we were perusing quite a bit was the startup CPG section and a lot of really cool, interesting brands that are early stage. And one of those brands is PARO, P-A-R-O. Now, Mike, you've been a fan of this brand for a long time. I have been. What did they originally sell? It was like the candy-coated anise seeds, right?
[00:05:10] John Craven: Well, no, they had a ghee-based chili crisp kind of thing that they were selling and their kitchari products, which is also like a rice dish, which they still have that. And now they have some new innovation.
[00:05:23] Ray Latif: So relatively esoteric products. This new line feels like it's a little bit more mainstream, feels like a lot of people are going to be snacking on these. These are lentil crisps, what they call lentil crisps. And we have, I think, three varieties. The one I'm holding in my hand is their jalapeno mint variety. It's made with avocado oil, made with real lentils, 12 grams of protein per bag. Each bag is four ounces. I wrote this on Instagram. This was one of the best things I ate at the show. Did you get to try these, John?
[00:05:52] John Craven: Yeah, I did.
[00:05:53] Ray Latif: I really did. That stuff is phenomenal. The call-outs on the bag are good. Do you need some hand sanitizer, Jackie?
[00:05:58] John Craven: Yes.
[00:05:59] Ray Latif: Hand sanitizer? Wait, you haven't tried it yet?
[00:06:01] John Craven: Oh, Krone! No.
[00:06:03] Ray Latif: Really? You've been in the booth.
[00:06:07] John Craven: It's weird when you haven't been to try something before me. Hold on. I'll save you, Jackie.
[00:06:14] Ray Latif: Are they good?
[00:06:15] John Craven: Yeah, those are phenomenal. There's a barbecue skew as well. I love the mint. Yeah, the mint comes late and it's a nice little finish for the crisp. Yeah, nice and light. These are really good. And I guess I disagree with Ray. The Kitchery product, it's pretty easy to understand once you see that it's rice and it's super tasty. This is just another like great skew in the Paro family, even though they did go away from their, you know, their ghee because that was difficult for people to understand. I mean, these are definitely like higher velocity products. For sure. Just different categories. For sure.
[00:06:50] Ray Latif: I think it just speaks to the evolution of some of these brands and that they're going into higher volume categories with adjacent products, right? Like, you know, our category-adjacent products. So like crisps, chips, you know, I would definitely reach for these as much as I would like a tortilla chip, probably even a potato chip. So they're really, really good.
[00:07:08] John Craven: We paired these with, well, there's a collaboration happening right now with Mazza, a Mediterranean brand that's, you know, everybody knows Mazza at this point, I think, who listens to Taste Radio. Phenomenal dips and sauces and people. Most importantly, the people. They sell people too? Well, no, no, no. I'm talking about Sheila and Yasmin and their mom. No, this is not Pluribus Ray. All right. Anyway, so we've seen Paro there and we took Paro to try with Masala Bliss, which is a line of achar products, which are phenomenal. And Nadia is here too. teaching people about achar. I mean, I think the important thing to know about Paro is it goes with anything or you can eat it on its own. It's just great.
[00:07:53] Ray Latif: Absolutely. And not too far from the Paro booth was the Pulpito. Oh, my God. And Pulpito is the maker of fruit jerkies. And we have been fans for a long time. Mike hoarded all the Pulpito.
[00:08:08] John Craven: I will continue to hoard that for life.
[00:08:10] Ray Latif: But they introduced, I don't know why I'm reaching around Mike, because you, Jackie and Mike have one of these. They have new fruit, I want to call them jerky bars almost, like imagine like a meat stick. Fruit snack bars. Yeah, like a strip. If you know Soli, the brand Soli. These are shorter Soli. They're shorter Solis. So the mango one that I have in my hand is half a mango, which is really, really cool. Incredibly delicious. And I'm so excited that they've gotten these single serves. I think they're coming in boxes of 10 though.
[00:08:36] John Craven: They come in boxes of 10. We had a conversation about what they should do next. And they've got some other innovations too, like a puree that's really tasty. But he's just been talking about form factor, which I think is really key here because something like this, you sell it in a big box. it's accessible at a certain level. And then how do you make that even more accessible? Or how do you get it into the hands of people who want to try it without buying the whole box? Well, this is the answer. And then you can think of things like shapes to make it more sort of kid-friendly. And there's nothing not kid-friendly about this right now. I mean, I got to say, like, tons of the ingredients.
[00:09:13] Ad Read: Yeah, cartoons.
[00:09:14] John Craven: Cartoons and just, well, the cartoons are a little bit like, aspirational for some kids, but that's a good thing. Remember back in the day when they'd have toys for six and eight-year-olds, and there's 12-year-olds playing with them in the commercials because you want to aspire. Regardless of age, I think it's a format that tells you how much to consume. So I think it makes it a little more approachable. Which I never listen to the amount you're supposed to consume because I just eat it all.
[00:09:40] Ray Latif: Well, I think the other thing that I like about this is that parents are paying a little bit more attention to some of the fillers, the preservatives, the colors that are in snacks that their kids are eating. And Pulpito's fruit turkeys, fruit strips, contain no gelatin. They contain no preservatives, color, or flavors. What you're getting is what you see on the front, half a mango per bar, which is awesome.
[00:10:01] John Craven: Speaking of parents. Yeah. Adnan, one of the co-founders, his parents are at the booth, got to meet them too. And it's like, it's really cool to meet his family.
[00:10:09] Ray Latif: And it was just kind of weird when you were like, oh, you're Adnan's mom and dad. He's a chill fucking dude. Yeah. I don't know if that was the comment of an interesting way to go. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:10:20] John Craven: So anyway, what I said to them was your son's perfect except for his choice of football clubs.
[00:10:25] Ray Latif: Oh, here we go.
[00:10:26] John Craven: You would say he's perfect in every way.
[00:10:27] Ray Latif: All right. Here we go. Here we go. Yeah. Kicking at it in the, uh... I was gonna curse again. I'm not gonna do it. I already cursed once. One curse per episode.
[00:10:38] John Craven: Did you play?
[00:10:39] Ray Latif: Yeah, we didn't. All right. Jackie's got a Bedford in front of her. I can't see.
[00:10:43] John Craven: What is that? This is Maro. and they stopped by the booth and did an Elevator Toll Booth it is sparkling Bone Broth and this is blackberry lime.
[00:10:54] Ray Latif: It's in a 12 ounce slim can.
[00:10:56] John Craven: It is, it is. It's actually kind of tasty. I haven't tried it because I don't consume Bone Broth but I know Craven, Mike have tried it. What do you think? It tastes like a fruit drink with a little bit of soup in it. Yeah. I don't know how else to describe it. Is it like a little salty? Yep. Yeah. Yeah. It's got a beefy flavor to it. A little beefy flavor. Blackberry lime plus beef. It doesn't suck though. Okay. You might go, oh my God. Have you ever had a Bone Broth latte? No. Did you drink out of this? Because I don't know where you are sometimes. Sometimes you'll dabble.
[00:11:28] Ad Read: You'll just dabble.
[00:11:29] John Craven: Yeah, yeah, yeah. A Bone Broth latte is kind of weird. Uh-huh. You know, you're pouring milk into, like, beef soup. Yeah. And you're like... But you also think of it as a cream-finished soup. So you're getting, like, an umami kind of experience? Yeah, you get a little umami in there.
[00:11:43] Ray Latif: Okay.
[00:11:43] John Craven: But you're also getting fruit.
[00:11:44] Ray Latif: What did Ray think?
[00:11:45] SPEAKER_??: Ray?
[00:11:46] Ray Latif: It kind of looks like... Well, first of all, the front of the pack, you got, like, this whole liquid death kind of thing going on. Yeah, there's a skull. It's a skull with a bandana.
[00:11:53] John Craven: It's like a groovy liquid death.
[00:11:55] Ray Latif: Yes. I don't know what maro means. I guess this rhymes with... Like marrow? Marrow. Oh, marrow. Marrow. Now I get it. M-A-R-R-O with a line over the O. You got it, Ray. It's described as a revitalizing protein refresher. I think they should just... kill the statement of identity. Don't call it a sparkling Bone Broth in the front. Just call it a protein refresher because you're not going to get a lot of weird glances and probably some people just writing it off right then and there. But you know what? To me, it doesn't taste that. I don't taste the Bone Broth.
[00:12:28] John Craven: You'll get in the finish if you drink enough, like every other sip. It's fruity. And then you'll get, oh, okay, there it is.
[00:12:36] Ad Read: Yeah.
[00:12:36] John Craven: And it does say 70 calories, workout recovery, supports healthy skin, hair, and nails. So lots of great benefits. 12 grams of protein and electrolytes and B12 and stuff.
[00:12:45] Ray Latif: Zero grams of sugar. What's the sweetener in here? Stevia. Wow, that's actually pretty good. I don't really taste much of the stevia. It's pretty tasty. Yeah, good job.
[00:12:52] John Craven: It's an interesting idea. I don't know. Again, it's one of those things that it's going to take a bunch of education, but I think the benefits are there. So maybe they got a shot. Yeah, and the fact that it tastes good, I think that they can definitely work on the messaging.
[00:13:04] Ray Latif: Yeah.
[00:13:04] John Craven: It tastes mostly good. Yeah.
[00:13:09] Ray Latif: One brand that I saw that I was not familiar with is a brand called By Nutz, B-Y-N-U-T-Z. No nuts jokes, Mike. I'm trying not to. It comes in these pouches with a closure. It's like the squeeze closure, yeah.
[00:13:24] John Craven: It's a squeeze pack with a... Sometimes sauces come in that kind of package.
[00:13:27] Ray Latif: Exactly, you see some... Those applesauce... Yeah, it's like a twist closure on the left-hand side here. Send us a DM on Instagram if you know what that's called. Yes. So it's 3.5 ounces of peanut butter in this pack, 25 grams per pack. Get in my belly. 25 grams of what? Protein? Of protein, yeah. And I love, yeah, thanks for pointing that out. I love the fact that these kinds of squeeze packs will keep me from ever having to use a butter knife again to get me inside.
[00:13:54] John Craven: Scrape it, the scraping sound.
[00:13:56] Ray Latif: If you're scraping, hopefully it's glass. Right, use a rubber spatula at that point. No, even the rubber spatula is not going to work. And you know how hard it is to clean peanut butter jars? Yeah, the nooks and crannies. Exactly. You spend at least seven gallons of water just trying to clean your peanut butter jar. What is even going on right now? Anyway. No, I just feel like this is innovative packaging. We always talk about packaging format and how you can differentiate yourself from other brands. And this is a really good way of doing it.
[00:14:24] John Craven: I'm picturing Ray cleaning the outside of the peanut butter jar before he'll even open it.
[00:14:28] Ray Latif: No, I would never do that. So anyway, good on you. That is cool looking packaging. Yeah, that is cool.
[00:14:34] John Craven: And the peanut butter, the peanut is cute. Yeah.
[00:14:37] Ray Latif: Ryan Galang, who's our video editor, introduced us to this really interesting brand. It's called Yeri. Y-E-R-I. and they're a maker of Indian coffees, described as Indian coffees. This one is a spiced oat latte. It has ginger, cardamom, black pepper, chicory, and other spices. Other spices. Other spices, yeah. That one tastes a bit like chai in coffee form. So on the back, or on the side, it says gut health in your coffee. and describes it as South India's traditional recipe to beat the bloat. Oh, okay. Interesting.
[00:15:14] John Craven: And notice none of that's on front or back, because it doesn't need any of that. Like, the coffee's awesome. Tastes really good. Do you get bloated when you have coffee? Oh, a latte. You can get a little milk bloat. Great podcast topic.
[00:15:25] Ray Latif: I don't know. Well, this is important. Dairy bloats some people. They're talking about reducing bloat. Yeah.
[00:15:30] John Craven: They also have this one, which is a coffee shandy. So it's lemonade and black coffee. So interesting to see the citrus. delicious yeah it's pretty delicious it's one of those things we've seen tried a few times i was telling them that that uh it's not my thing but yeah it tastes really good yeah i love the branding on on the package too it has a little bit like it looks a little bit like uh Dew Dropper formerly known as honey drop in some ways i think there's some things they can improve with the label hierarchy but overall it's good and also the the beans, the package for the yeri beans, spot on. And it's really, it's got this really cool picture of a woman pouring coffee over her head like she's doing a skyhook shot, like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. It's really sweet. That's a brand that has some legs. Yeah, yeah.
[00:16:13] Ray Latif: So I came across a brand called Rabbit Foods. They're a maker of frozen smoothie pops. Oh, probably not the first brand. I think we've had similar products that we've seen on the market, but they're really, really delicious. The one I have is their mango passion and the smoothie pops look like little bunnies. Yeah, cute little rabbits. I bet you those have melted in the time it took for us to wait for you to start recording. No, there's nothing in here. There's just like, I think there's like a shake weight or something like that. But yeah, they come in three packs and... Cool looking box. Each pop has 100 calories and 11 grams of sugar per pop. Just joking, Ray. I mean, there's a line of people out the door to meet Ray, so we had to wait. All for crying out loud. They are USC organic, they're plant-based, no refined sugar, and they have prebiotic fiber. But most importantly, they taste amazing. They're really, really delicious. I mean, I like the use case. Like if you want just like a snack in the afternoon on a hot day, but you don't want it to be like a disgusting saccharin popsicle. Yum. Yeah, I love the name.
[00:17:14] John Craven: The name's fun, Rabbit Foods. You're thinking like greens, you're thinking vegetables, you're thinking fruits.
[00:17:21] Ray Latif: Exactly. Yeah.
[00:17:22] John Craven: Exactly. Back to nuts for a second. Sure. The founders of Octonuts came over and showed us their new innovation. They used to, if you recall, they used to have nut oils for cooking and protein powder, and now they've leaned into nut butters and snacks. Packaging looks really great, and I haven't gotten a chance to try it, but I'm going to stop by the booth and try. Yeah. Really excited about that. They're so nice. They're very, very sweet.
[00:17:47] Ray Latif: Also got to meet the founder of Tru Cinnamon. We talked about Tru Cinnamon when we were in LA at Babnet Live. This is an eight ounce glass bottle that contains water that's infused Tru Cinnamon. That's so good. I just learned today, I did an interview with the co-founder of Burlap and Beryl, which is a maker of single origin spices, really amazing brand. I love that conversation. Stay tuned for that one. I didn't know cinnamon comes from tree bark? Did you know this? Yes. Yes. Cinnamon bark.
[00:18:16] John Craven: I've seen cinnamon sticks. You knew this? Where do you think it came from? I thought this was sort of a known fact. I don't know. Where do you think it came from? Duck feathers. Ray thought it was some duck feathers, guys. Like roots? Like, I don't know.
[00:18:33] Ray Latif: Cinnamon fruits.
[00:18:34] John Craven: Yeah. Yes.
[00:18:35] Ray Latif: But one of the things I also didn't know is how delicious cinnamon is in a beverage. I mean, you have cinnamon like in a latte or in a coffee product, but on its own, this is a very refreshing beverage that, you know how sometimes real versus efficacious benefit. I feel like this you can actually feel this doing good when you drink it.
[00:18:57] John Craven: You know the other thing about that that I would I would not have thought to do was combine cinnamon and lemon. Cinnamon and lemon is an epic, epic combination. If there's another sample cup, I'd take some too.
[00:19:14] Ray Latif: Oh, that's more than a scooch. Sorry. I crushed John with more than a scooch there. Thank you. I'll drink it though. It's all good. Yeah. So Ali Alfaraj is the founder of this company. He created it after he was burned out of his corporate job and he's like, I need something that's going to- So good. make me feel better on a regular basis. And yeah, I love, I love the taste of this product.
[00:19:36] John Craven: I feel like I haven't had cinnamon when it's not sweet, you know, like cinnamon's always in like sweet treats. It's really nice and refreshing. I feel rich. I feel like I should have my pinky out.
[00:19:49] Ray Latif: Put your pinky, put your pinky away.
[00:19:50] John Craven: It's an experience that I wouldn't think of having and it feels like, yeah, it feels like something that's been hidden.
[00:19:56] Ray Latif: Well, the other thing is it's like, it's refreshing. It is.
[00:20:00] John Craven: You want to drink more.
[00:20:00] Ray Latif: Exactly. You think it's going to be heavy or kind of, I don't know, cloying in some ways because it'Tru Cinnamon, right? You associate it with sweets, but it's really delicious and really easy to drink.
[00:20:11] Jacqui Brugliera: Do you want more repeat buyers on Amazon? Well, this free resource in collaboration with Straight Up Growth will help your brand turn first-time buyers into long-term subscribers. Download Winning the Repeat Purchase Game on Amazon now at Taste Radio slash SUG. That's Taste Radio slash S-U-G to start building retention-driven growth for your brand on Amazon. Scaling a beverage brand into major retail comes down to operational readiness. From packaging lead times to co-manufacturing strategy, the details can make or break a launch. In a new e-book in collaboration with Octopi and Asahi Beer USA, industry leaders share what they've learned in helping brands scale. Download it now at Taste Radio slash octopi. If you're developing a cannabis beverage, formulation choices matter, especially early on. Source Technology's free guide shares practical insights on stability, dosing, and scale-ready development. Download the ins and outs of creating a cannabis beverage today at Taste Radio slash cannabis.
[00:21:21] Ray Latif: Now, we did have a bag of Bitchin' Sauce. Now, wait, how- Bitchin' Sauce, chips, come on now.
[00:21:28] John Craven: You were interrupting my- He stole the thunder! He stole my thunder!
[00:21:34] Ray Latif: So, yes, I was gonna say, how could you have a bag of Bitchin' Sauce? Well, you can't, because Bitchin' Sauce introduced a new line of tortilla chips that are made with almond oil. There's no Bitchin' Sauce in the chip. There's no Bitchin' Sauce in the chip.
[00:21:46] John Craven: It's just tortilla chips made in almond oil.
[00:21:48] Ray Latif: Yes. I had an opportunity to sit down with Star Edwards at the Naturally San Diego event last night. Shout out to Naturally San Diego for putting on the best party. Yeah. That was fun. At the Winter Fancy Fair and inviting us to do some interviews while we were there, which is awesome.
[00:22:03] John Craven: Three words, fillet, mignon, tacos.
[00:22:07] Ray Latif: Filet mignon tacos.
[00:22:08] John Craven: Yes, they had them at the party. You didn't eat them last night?
[00:22:10] Ray Latif: Oh, for crying out loud. No, I didn't have any food. No, Ray was busy working. We talked about this last week. There was going to be unlimited margaritas and unlimited tacos. Well, I had more of the former than the latter.
[00:22:20] John Craven: I got to catch up with our dear friend James Wren, formerly with Thrive. We ate filet mignon tacos and trolled Manchester United. It was awesome.
[00:22:31] Ray Latif: That's your story? You done? I'm glad you share that with everyone. Yeah, we're going to cut that out. No, I had an opportunity to sit down with Star Edwards, who is one of the co-founders of Bitchin' Sauce, and just a brilliant entrepreneur who comes to work with such a great attitude. and such a passion for this business, that of food and beverage. And one of the best things that she said during the interview, in terms of pieces of advice for entrepreneurs was, don't be afraid, right? This is a scary business, for sure. But I think what she was talking about is like, you know, you're going to face big problems, you know, you're going to face challenges, just face them with positivity and face them with a reality that you know, you're going to get past them, or at least you have to try to get past them. So the entire interview is going to be featured in a future episode of Taste Radio, so stay tuned for that. I also had an opportunity to sit down with Ari Raz, the CEO of The Coconut Cult. Nice. Chill dude. And the chairman, or is he the chair of the board for Naturally San Diego? Right? The board chair? I think so. I believe he is. Yes. So very, very chill dude. Talked about the The Coconut Cult mini cups that are at Target. Those are great. So good. Awesome stuff. Those are so good.
[00:23:44] John Craven: Yeah. I also want to point out that I've eaten three Pulpito bars and Viviana's breaking out the phone each time I eat one. And recording to show how many Pulpito bars I can stop. She's going to make a reel with the counts.
[00:23:59] Ray Latif: Did you see Tart, T-A-R-T? It's a new brand of cherry juice and they come in these short 8.4 ounce cans. They're bright red with the word Tart across it. It almost looks like a non-alcohol cocktail in some ways, but it's It's cherry juice. I can't recall. Was it sparkling? I don't think it was. It was slightly. Slightly sparkling. Yeah. You know, I hadn't seen many cherry juices come to market. Usually it's an ingredient like, remember Cherubundi? Of course. It was very much focused on cherry juice, cherry juice, cherry juice. And I'm glad because it's a really delicious, highly nutritious beverage that doesn't have a lot of sugar and just it feels like it has a lot of use cases during the day. You can have it morning, afternoon. You can certainly have it as a non-alcoholic cocktail or at least as part of your non-alcoholic cocktail as well. So cool stuff. Love to see that kind of innovation. Also, I came across a brand called Todo. This is at the California Dairy Area.
[00:24:59] John Craven: Yeah, yeah, I remember that area.
[00:25:02] Ray Latif: I'm blanking on what they call the association. Maybe it's California Dairy Association. And the brand is called Toto, T-O-T-O. And they make ready-to-drink fiber and protein drinks. So you're getting a healthy dose of both. It talks about how it's GLP-1 friendly. There's three varieties, milk chocolate and espresso and a chocolate hazelnut. The espresso was actually pretty darn good. And immediately I sent that to Melissa Traverse, who is our fiber expert. And I thought she'd be happy.
[00:25:30] John Craven: Yes, there it is, fiber.
[00:25:33] Ray Latif: Fiber. But I thought she would appreciate the fact that now we're not just seeing a protein coffee or a protein milk, now we're seeing a fiber and protein coffee or fiber and protein milk. So good stuff.
[00:25:44] John Craven: Speaking of fiber, did you get to the Date Better booth yet? I didn't, I'm familiar with DateBetter. Yeah, Date Better's here and they have their amazing chocolate and nut butter covered dates with extraordinary packaging. Again, speaking of indulgences, a simple indulgence.
[00:26:02] Ray Latif: Nice, nice. It's not a fancy food show without hummus. And Baba's, which is a brand based out of Minneapolis, makes these creamy hummuses. They are so delicious. I know you like Habiza, John. They're Habiza-ish, but even creamier in some ways, which is pretty cool. A race for the creamiest hummus, huh? It might be. Well, these brands are differentiated in that, like, a lot of times you get hummus and it's just thick, and the creamy actually gives it a very different kind of experience when you eat it. It feels like a little bit more of a dip than a spread. Sometimes hummuses can feel like a spread and you don't want that, especially in terms of the texture and consistency.
[00:26:41] John Craven: Really picky hummus consumer there.
[00:26:43] Ray Latif: Look, there's just so many of them out there. Dirty Saint in the house. What else?
[00:26:48] John Craven: Dirty Sissy in the hissy.
[00:26:51] Ray Latif: One of the founders of Dirty Saint just came up to the- Jeff Thielman. Chill dude, chill dude. He was supplying everyone here at the fancy fair with some of the Dirty Saint as well.
[00:26:59] John Craven: Again, those guys, they hustled and hustled and hustled at BevNET Live and they came to the party last night and just posted up in the bar. We're just handing out remedy.
[00:27:09] Ray Latif: Yeah. I mean, People were very happy this morning to have them, for sure. But anyway, just to wrap on Baba's. Yeah, I love this brand. Pretty regional distribution at this point, but I'm hoping we're going to see them in the Northeast pretty soon. So obviously, we covered, I don't know, we probably mentioned about a dozen brands here. There are a lot of incredible brands exhibited at the Winter Fancy Fair. We're going to be talking about more of them. We're going to be highlighting them.
[00:27:33] John Craven: You'll see more of them on our Instagram.
[00:27:36] Ray Latif: Yeah. We are putting them on the Grams. And we'll be reporting on some of the things that we saw at the show, at least our editorial team will on Nosh and BevNET, so stay tuned for that. But to some of the brands that we didn't mention and who might be listening to this episode, Fret Not. We love you guys. We'll be talking about you soon. And if you have an opportunity to send product or send samples to our offices, please do. You can find the addresses for our Newton office and for our San Diego office on the website. So as John likes to say, Google Maps. Google it.
[00:28:06] John Craven: Or just email us at AskItTasteRadio. You can do that too. I mean, I know you would love to just read off our address and our zip code and maybe tell people how to MapQuest.
[00:28:16] Ray Latif: MapQuest.
[00:28:17] John Craven: MapQuest. MapQuest. AltaVista. But we'll move on anyway.
[00:28:20] Ray Latif: Yeah. No, I'm not going to do that because- Please don't. The Googles is very, very powerful. Yeah. Very handy. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just thrilled that the Fancy Food Show, now Fancy Fair, is back where it belongs in California. What a great show. Not in Vegas. Yes. Yeah. What a great show.
[00:28:34] John Craven: Thank you so much for having us.
[00:28:36] Ray Latif: And very much looking forward to the events in San Francisco next year. But first, we have to get to Expo West. And to be honest, I'm worried about that show. Oh, God. Not again. No, I'm not going to do it. Here we go again. There were a number of founders that we saw that are like, OK, yeah, we got some we got some things to talk about, but we're not going to talk about until Expo West. So. We're going to see you there. And if you want to give us a heads up on some of the new products and innovation that you're going to be sharing at the show, please let us know so we can come and visit your booth because we definitely want to do that.
[00:29:09] John Craven: Submit your news under embargo as soon as you can. Then our reporters are prepared, we're prepared, we'll come see you. Yes.
[00:29:15] Ray Latif: And Mike will eat you out of house and home, which is a good thing.
[00:29:18] John Craven: Just like I did to Vulpito.
[00:29:22] Ray Latif: That brings us to the end of this episode of Taste Radio. Thank you so much for listening. Taste Radio is a production of BevNET.com, Incorporated. Our audio engineer for Taste Radio is Joe Kratchy. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt, and our video editor is Ryan Galang. Our social marketing manager is Amanda Smerlinski, and our designer is Amanda Huang. Just a reminder, if you like what you hear on Taste Radio, please share the podcast with friends and colleagues. And of course, we would love it if you could review us on the Apple Podcasts app or your listening platform of choice. Check us out on Instagram. Our handle is bevnettasteradio. As always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please send us an email to ask at Taste Radio. On behalf of the entire Taste Radio team, thank you for listening, and we'll Toll Booth you next time.
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