[00:00:00] Jacqui Brugliera: More SKUs, more data, more complexity. The beverage industry is changing fast. VIP helps suppliers, distributors, and retailers stay ahead, turning purpose-built beverage data and technology into smarter decisions and better results. For more than 50 years, VIP has helped power the beverage industry. Now, they're building what's next. VIP, empowering smart decisions. Visit VIPinsights.com for more information.
[00:00:37] Ray Latif: Hello, dear friends, and thanks for tuning into Taste Radio, the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food or beverage. I'm Ray Latif, the editor and producer of Taste Radio, and with my co-host for this episode, Jacqui Brugliera, Mike Schneider, and Melissa Traverse. Melissa, welcome back.
[00:00:57] Mike Schneider: Thanks so much. I'm happy to be here for the second week in a row.
[00:01:00] Ray Latif: Two weeks in a row. And if John's not careful, it might be three or four weeks in a row because you've done such a great job filling in for Mr. Craven.
[00:01:09] Mike Schneider: At what point does he just forfeit the seat?
[00:01:11] Ray Latif: You know, I think some days he would prefer to forfeit the seat. Not every day, but there are some days where he's just like, have you had Ray grill you? He's just like, you know what? Lunch is upstairs. I'm hungry. I'm tired. I'm sick of hearing Ray's voice. I'm just done with this. You'll get there too, if you stick around for a little bit longer. Yes. Jackie, you doing good post-Indigenous Peoples Day? You get your long weekend in?
[00:01:38] Mike Schneider: Did we have a long weekend? Yeah.
[00:01:39] Ray Latif: Oh, did you have a long weekend?
[00:01:41] Mike Schneider: It sounds like you may have. Yeah, no, uh, I'm good. I'm good. I'm readjusted to West Coast hours.
[00:01:51] Ray Latif: Oh yeah, that's right. You were like on European time for quite some time.
[00:01:55] Mike Schneider: Yeah. Yeah. But I wake up really early every day now. So these 8 AM recordings is nothing anymore.
[00:02:01] Ray Latif: Okay, good. Yeah. Well, I see by your left hand side, you've got some Aldea. Oh, I do. Aldea is a brand of ready to drink cocktails that have low ABV. So they're about 2.5%. They're a brand new brand, All Dia as in All Dia. And actually I spoke with the founders in an episode of Elevator Talk that aired this week on Wednesday.
[00:02:24] Mike Schneider: Wow, perfect timing.
[00:02:25] Ray Latif: Okay, but even if you're on Europe time, Jackie, it's probably not a good idea for it to be happy hour in San Diego yet.
[00:02:30] Mike Schneider: If it's low ABV, you can't part with it All Dia. I'm proving it.
[00:02:35] Ray Latif: Low ABV. All right. Is it better to have a cannabev at 8 a.m.? I don't know. If so, we've got anytime here. We've got anytime cannabevs here. It's a cannabev called, the brand is called Anytime. Anytime.
[00:02:49] Mike Schneider: Is that 15 milligrams? Oh, 15 milligrams of CBD. How appropriate was that?
[00:02:52] Ray Latif: It was. Well done. Nice segue. Yes. It's interesting that they call it Anytime because they've got one that's 5mg-15 CBD, 5mg-CHC-15 of CBD, and that's mango flavor, and then some of their others are a little higher test. So 10 of each, the lime and the strawberry kiwi. They've got some other SKUs too, but this one really intrigued me. Well, there is, I know we talked about this brand a couple of weeks ago, this brand called Uncle Skunks. Oh my God. It's from a company, I believe the company's called Chronic Craft Sodas, or maybe that's just the way it's described. This one has a hundred milligrams per 12 ounce. That one is the opposite of any type. I'm bringing out all these brands. I mean, you have Uncle Skunks, you've got a brand called Delta, you got one called Shift Cocktails, another called, excuse me. I think it's Downshift. Well, this one's called Downshift. This one apparently is just called Shift Cocktail. Oh, interesting. And here's one that's called Cantrip. This one's not ready to drink, it's ready to pour. And I'm talking about all these brands because the category of cannabevs just got a big boost with the news that Target has begun beverage sales, well specifically THC beverage sales, in 10 of its stores in Minnesota. Yeah, nice job, Target. Big deal. Yeah, most specifically in the Twin Cities region. This story was broke by BevNET on October 10th and just a quote from the story that this is potentially a seismic shift in distribution for the category. The hemp-driven THC set will be sold Is Target wine, beer, and spirit stores according to Minnesota ABC laws. So Brands that can be Initially stock in those stores include Trail Magic Gili birdie stigma indeed and surly you also have can Hi Seltzer wink Find Wunder senorita in wild so a serious variety of products Is Target doesn't seem to have any hesitation when it comes to I guess introducing these brands to its customers in Minnesota, but does it go past Minnesota? I guess that's a big question. That is the big question. As I asked you guys earlier, you know, in our pre-show brief, do you see this as a temporary trend or a tipping point for intoxicating cannabis? In mainstream retail. Can I finish my sentence? Sorry, Ray. You really were laboring there. As you can see us chomping at the bit to talk about cannabis. I know. I know. I see it as a test because obviously Minnesota has just led the way in grocery store retail cannabis. And so it just makes a lot of sense for Target to try it in Minnesota first. Hopefully it's a springboard for the rest of the nation, but it does seem like a test for now.
[00:05:44] Mike Schneider: And for those of us who would like to see it spread, I think the fact that Target is taking this on first is incredibly encouraging because they err more on the side of a conventional retailer as opposed to, you know, some of the natural grocery stores, that kind of thing. So I think it's a big step and I'll be really interested to see how this, I think it's a trial run, how this trial run plays out. Yeah. And I think there's just like continued momentum. I know like top 10 liquors has done a great job trailblazing, like in Minnesota for THC specifically. And obviously it's proved to be successful in that retailer. And now other, you know, retailers are seeing that seeing the numbers and then they want to get on board. So I think it's just going to be like a groundswell, just constantly proving the model and proving that consumers want this product and that it also lines up, you know, with regulations.
[00:06:39] Ray Latif: Yeah. One of the biggest, most mainstream retailers that there Is Target has cannabis. Just, just step out of yourself for a second. Did you ever think that would happen? I'm excited about it. Well, the momentum seems to have pointed in that direction, the momentum for cannabis beverages. And to be clear, the beverages that they're carrying in these stores will be sold in multi-packs and range from two milligrams to five milligrams of THC per serving. Five is legit. For all the positive signs that we're seeing for this category, I'm still very bearish about its potential. And the reason I say that is because of all the regulation that we're seeing from state to state, and the fact that we're not really seeing any clear guidance at the federal level for cannabis-based products, or more specifically intoxicating cannabis-based products. I mean, you just look at a story that was written All Dia before, or actually the day of this announcement that Target was going to introduce these products into its stores in Minnesota, And you talk about a state like Ohio, where recently the governor issued or signed an executive order temporarily halting all sale and public display of intoxicating hemp products for the next 90 days. Similar to what we saw from governors in states like Massachusetts and California. You know, you have the lieutenant governor of Texas. who basically is comparing cannabis-based products to, I don't know, the plague, basically saying that this is going to ruin the lives of future generations of people. Yeah, because alcohol doesn't do that at all. Well, look, you know, I think there was a lot of promise for this space. I think a lot of people thought the previous federal government or administration and this current administration were going to open the door to sales of hemp products and open the door to potential legalization of hemp-based products. That hasn't happened.
[00:08:40] Mike Schneider: Well, I think there are a lot of stops and starts. I think the reason that Ohio shut the doors was because of the influx of products. There are so many of varying kinds. And so there are just so many things coming in. They're having trouble figuring out what's what. And to me, it's sort of. just what happens when you open the doors to an entirely new category. So I think it'll take some time, but I don't see this going away for sure. Yeah, I feel like it's five steps forward and like a couple steps back, but we keep taking steps forward no matter how many steps we take back. And I think different states are going to have different regulations, and it's going to be slowly adopted with it in different regions. But I think money talks, and I think that if Minnesota proves that this is a product that people want and that they can tax and that people can lobby against. I think that's going to, you know, move that in that direction. I mean, and lobby for to Mike's point, like alcohol used to be illegal too. And a lot of people wanted alcohol and they tax the crap out of alcohol too.
[00:09:53] Ray Latif: I guess at the end of the day, kudos to Target for taking, as Jackie pointed out, a step forward for this space. It is, I think, and this is just me talking, a good alternative to folks who don't want to consume alcohol. It is, in some ways, I think, in small doses, or at least in small-dosed formats, appropriate for U.S. consumers. Why don't I try it? When are you going to try it? I think, you know, for me, it's more of a, it's kind of a stupid decision at this point, Why Fi haven't, or don't consume cannabis-based beverages. It's like people who have never had alcohol in their lives and are just making a choice that, okay, well, I've gotten this far in my life. But you've had a lot. At age 29, I've gotten this far in life where I feel like I don't need to stop laughing. Or I just feel like if I've gotten this far, why, why try it now? I have a good reason to try it now. I've been in the beverage industry for 14 years. I probably should try it. And you have to sit next to me on a podcast every week, so maybe it would help.
[00:10:57] Mike Schneider: You might find it really helps. I have a quick shameless plug for the cannabis content on Nonbase. If you want to hear more cannabis content, head over to nonbase.com. We recently just talked with Magic Cactus and Fabric, two low-dose cannabis beverages, and soon we're going to publish something with Wink and Hightail.
[00:11:21] Ray Latif: Very cool. I'm so excited. Very cool. So excited. Thank you, Melissa. Yeah. And continue to follow all stories about the development of this category and brands within it on BevNET.com.
[00:11:33] Jacqui Brugliera: More than 70% of new CPG products fail, often over margins founders never fully understood. Outsourced accounting can close that gap for good. Visit BelaySolutions.com slash BevNET for a free small business accounting guide from Belay.
[00:11:49] 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 Awkwad of VIP to explore how AI is moving beyond analytics to automate decisions, improve efficiency, and transform the three-tier system. Shifting gears from cannabis to fiber. So PepsiCo in its most recent earnings report, that would be its third quarter earnings report, described fiber as the next protein. And this kind of came as no surprise to me because Melissa has been talking about the fiber wave coming to the food and beverage category for some time right now. I believe last week you described your interest in fiber as an obsession.
[00:12:47] Mike Schneider: It's the fiber revolution and that's hot on the tail of Whole Foods Market releasing their 2026 trend report. I think fiber was the first trend they noted.
[00:12:58] Ray Latif: It's interesting to me because we briefly talked about this last week and Fiber is probably the least sexy ingredient you can think of, right? Not to Melissa. She's considering changing her last name to Mucil. Oh, okay. Melissa Mucil.
[00:13:13] Mike Schneider: Fiber just has a bad rep. You are thinking of Metamucil commercials. You're thinking of old people when you're thinking of Fiber.
[00:13:20] Ray Latif: Yeah, you're also thinking of bodily functions when you're thinking about fiber, right? Yeah, it's not sexy. Which you should be thinking about. I know. When you think about protein, you're like, oh, I'm, you know, fitness, or I'm getting healthy, or like bodybuilders. It just like has a more sexy connotation to it. Cannabis, okay, there's just, you know. Chill out.
[00:13:36] Mike Schneider: Fiber, you're just sitting on the toilet.
[00:13:39] Ray Latif: Fiber. Against the mainstream kind of.
[00:13:41] Mike Schneider: Yeah, right.
[00:13:43] Ray Latif: Cache to cannabis, but fiber.
[00:13:45] Mike Schneider: I mean, that is just such a healthy and natural part of a person's existence, right? I mean, it's just like part of feeling really great, right?
[00:14:00] Ray Latif: This wasn't a mid-level executive who described fiber as a new protein. This was their CEO, Ramon Lagarta. So if the CEO is saying this, you got to think that PepsiCo is making significant investments with fiber in new product development. So are we going to start seeing, you know, fiber laden Doritos? Are we going to start seeing, you know, more fiber in, well, we're already seeing in PepsiCo products, right? PepsiCo prebiotic and their acquisition of poppy.
[00:14:25] Mike Schneider: Bread, pita chips, cereal, chocolate. Yeah, like they have fiber. They're putting fiber already in it, but we're using prebiotics. Prebiotics sounds cooler and sexier than fiber. But prebiotics and probiotics, I think, work better in combination with fiber. Fiber makes everything better.
[00:14:45] Ray Latif: Yeah. Also remember when you have a lot of protein, you actually need the fiber or else you get a lot of bad things happen in your blood. If you don't have like a good balance.
[00:14:57] Mike Schneider: Yeah. I think fiber is just like a, it's just a thing that needs to go with everything else. Like if you have a lot of sugar, you need fiber to balance your blood sugar levels. You know, it just is something that makes you a healthier person. Right. You know, I think of fiber as nature's GLP-1. I know allulose has been positioned like that, but fiber fills you up. It makes you feel full, I think, on maybe less food than if you had more food that had less fiber in it.
[00:15:26] Ray Latif: Fiber is nature's GLP-1 drug.
[00:15:29] Mike Schneider: You heard it here first.
[00:15:30] Ray Latif: There you go. And last. Melissa just threw down the gauntlet. Making America healthy again. Melissa's reverse. Wow. Senator to Congress. Yeah, maybe Fiverr is just catching up to where people thought it would actually get to a few years ago. Because I remember there was a lot of talk about Fiverr and people were actually using that word in promotion of their products and marketing about their products. Nowadays, I think there's just more education out there, more awareness about the benefits of fiber and regular consumption of fiber in your diet, whereas I think a few years ago it was still considered to be something that was an old people's ingredient.
[00:16:14] Mike Schneider: I think regular is the key word there.
[00:16:17] Ray Latif: Yes, okay. Why are you making those noises? You just keep encouraging her, setting her up so she'll knock them down. That wasn't Melissa who made that noise. Melissa's like bowling strikes.
[00:16:26] Mike Schneider: No, no, it wasn't.
[00:16:27] Ray Latif: No, it wasn't, but I'm just writing down the strike.
[00:16:32] Jacqui Brugliera: Okay. Just keeping a score over here.
[00:16:34] Melissa Traverse: 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.
[00:16:53] Ray Latif: When we talk to entrepreneurs about finding white space and solving a real problem for consumers, I love a new brand that is about to launch that's called Pantry Gems. I met the founder of this company at our San Diego meetup and she makes single serve packets of tomato paste. Okay, how many times hallelujah how many times have you gone to a store? And you see those you know squeeze bottles of tomato paste or the ones in cans even worse like those short cans we have to open the can and I don't know how you cover it with saran wrap and you stick it in the fridge and Within a week you're like should I throw this out and two weeks later. There's mold and it's just like stop This Solves a real problem for consumers where you have this single serve packet that I'm holding in my hand. I believe it's one ounce. It doesn't describe, this is a prototype. I believe it's one ounce, one ounce packet of tomato paste. That's actually described as one tablespoon. You know, you're making a sauce, you put it in there and you're done. And you don't have to worry about extra cleanup or opening up a can of tomato paste that you're only gonna use once. Is there a wet wipe in there too? There's no wet wipe. It looks like a wet wipe. I mean, I love, love this idea. Love this concept.
[00:18:10] Mike Schneider: I love that so much. Just the other day, I found a calcified nubbin of frozen tomato paste from one of those cans and I had to throw it away. So I'd use that All Dia long.
[00:18:21] Ray Latif: Well, we're going to find out more about this brand in an upcoming episode of Elevator Talk, where, as I mentioned, the founder of the company, Gina Moore, is going to be on the mics with us. So stay tuned for that. That'll be published on November 5th. And if you're interested in participating in a future episode of Elevator Talk, the series where we profile early stage and disruptive concepts from across the food and beverage industry, just head to Taste Radio.com slash Elevator Talk. All right. We talked cannabis and fiber to death. So I think we can move on to other categories and products. Everyone's got something to talk about. Let's start with Jackie.
[00:19:00] Mike Schneider: Yeah, I have alcohol, which we already talked about Aldea, but yeah, they have a variety of products which are low ABV 2.5% based on with tequila. I have the ranch water and the tequila Chilton, which is tequila with natural lemon flavors and sea salt. They're only 50, around 50 calories too. So if you're looking for something, you know, low calorie, low ABV to just like sip on, these are great option. I love the packaging. They really, really pop.
[00:19:33] Ray Latif: I love the name. The packaging is incredible. If you have a chance, if you don't, if you're not seeing any video of this episode, head to Aldea.com. That's how you do branding. I asked the founders. about their package design and how much it cost or if it cost a pretty penny. And they said, yes, it did. But they wanted to come out of the gate really strong.
[00:19:53] Mike Schneider: Yeah, for sure. And then I also have a brand of product called Rumblers, which are rum-based cocktails. This is their cola and this is their pineapple soda. a little bit more minimalist. I really like that it's just very straightforward what you're getting, like on the front of pack for the cola, it says rum, cola, and lime. And then for the pineapple soda, just rum, pineapple, and soda. So it just feels like it's very clean as far as what you're drinking, and they're 7% ABV and clean packaging, nice white packaging as well.
[00:20:28] Ray Latif: Rumblers. I like the name. Rumblers, yeah. It's cool.
[00:20:31] Mike Schneider: It's clear that they're rum-based cocktails.
[00:20:33] Ray Latif: Oh, I see.
[00:20:34] Mike Schneider: A rumble is a fight as well, right?
[00:20:37] Ray Latif: A rumble is a fight. So hopefully you don't get into a rumble after drinking a few rumblers.
[00:20:42] Mike Schneider: Unless you don't have enough rumblers, in which case there may be a rumble for the remaining rumblers.
[00:20:48] Ray Latif: Look at this. We could go All Dia with this. We could go All Dia with this back and forth. Oh, wow. Anytime. Yes. Or anytime. All right, well done. Every Days, too. Oh, you got some Every Days. Okay, Mike wants to talk about his products. I don't know if I want to. This is weird, man. I mean, so we got this product, and it's a product of Korea, where maybe they have bagged beverages. Okay, so it's called Every Days. It's called Every Days. And it's Every D-A-Z-E. Every D-A-Z-E. And it says, Drinkation. which somebody thought to put drink and vacation into one word on the front of pack. And Ray has peach paradise? And I have espresso escape, zero sugar. The idea is you tear open, you pour over ice and you enjoy this bag of beverage. Yeah, it's a pouch package beverage. It's like a large Capri Sun, but with no hole for the straw. Where's my straw? There's no straw. You rip it open, you pour it over ice and you enjoy. Okay. Yeah, it's 7.8 ounces, which seems like a lot. A lot of liquid for a cocktail.
[00:21:52] Mike Schneider: You could pack it in your suitcase.
[00:21:53] Ray Latif: It's not for a cocktail though. It's not glass. That's the point. I mean, maybe it's supposed to be a cocktail starter, but it doesn't say anything about adding alcohol. Tear open, pour over ice, enjoy. This is not alcohol. Oh, okay. So I thought this was a cocktail. See? It's a drinkationary. And it describes on the back, it says drinkation is a playful fusion of quote drink and quote vacations, inviting you to escape the ordinary with every refreshment.
[00:22:18] Jacqui Brugliera: I wonder if the London version is or the UK version is drink holiday.
[00:22:22] Ray Latif: Yeah, no sugar added, but there is erythritol and steviol. Sipoliday? Glycosides. Guzzololiday? Why are we trying this? We can. Here we go. I'm going to try some of this. Ray's going to sample, guys. You know Why Fi also thought it was a cocktail? Because that one says espresso escape, and it definitely feels like an espresso martini. Get it away from your computer. That's going to splash. Oh my God. Where's John's second? Oh, God, John, I tried. Wow. This peach paradise definitely smells like a juicy peach, which is a good thing. Pass this to Melissa, because, you know, she's got such a happy look on her face, hoping that she gets to try it. There's a there's a real tea quality to it, getting a lot of tea flavor, also getting a ton of sweetness, certainly from the stevia and erythritol. Not as cloying as some stevia sweetened beverages can be, but it's good. I don't understand. You know what? I think over ice, sort of diluting, diluting it a bit. I'm pretty sure you're supposed to like drop some soju into this or something. That's good. I like it. So consider me converted. Okay. Ray, have you ever been to Frogtown, California? That's my, uh, where my vacation home is. Oh, cool. Well, then you've heard of Tiz from your vacation hometown. Uh, no, cause they're brand new. Oh, okay. Yeah. Tiz is a maker of tiny sodas in these cute little eight fluid ounce cans that we, we've seen like, you know, things like maybe Tip Top or other. Alkbevzin, but this is a 33% juice soda. Let's try it. I'm going to try the tangerine. 33% juice. Yeah.
[00:24:06] Mike Schneider: I love a mini can of soda.
[00:24:09] Ray Latif: Yeah, well, I mean portion control We started to see a lot of this with the the big companies the Pepsi's and cokes of the world introducing smaller format cans because people were unable to Control themselves they were instead of drinking less, so they would just drink the entire that's really nice Yeah, we got to try vanilla cream tangerine fish too while we're at it yeah What's the sugar content in this? It's a bit sweeter than I expected to be, honestly. Appropriate. Eight grams of sugar per serving for a can. And again, these are small cans, so. They're eight ounce cans. Yeah, eight ounce cans. So that's pretty high sugar content.
[00:24:48] Mike Schneider: Eight grams?
[00:24:49] Ray Latif: Yeah, medium. Medium sugar content.
[00:24:51] Mike Schneider: Pretty good.
[00:24:52] Ray Latif: Yeah, I think that's really interesting is they don't use the word soda on the front of the can They use the word fizz vanilla cream tangerine fizz. It's really fizzy on the back It says tis is not proven to bounce your hormones heal your inner child reduce fine lines and wrinkles Bring your spine into alignment or help you focus or boost your microbiome Doesn't do anything is a tangy delicious tangerine fizz made by two idiots who have never made a beverage before It basically goes on to say that doesn't have to be light-hearted fizzy tizzy ridiculously delicious, so we got an elevator Yeah, we do we are going to be sick What they're trying to very clearly state is this is a beverage for refreshments, not for function. And for Mike. And for Mike. Kids for Mike. Thank you guys. Yes. I wouldn't say you're idiots. This is really tasty stuff.
[00:25:44] Mike Schneider: Yeah, really tasty.
[00:25:46] Ray Latif: Melissa, you got a bunch of stuff in front of you.
[00:25:48] Mike Schneider: I have here Sweetie Mochi. This is a mochi company out of Southern California. They're actually the only AAPI-owned mochi company that I'm aware of anyways. They've been doing this since 1978, and I think their mochi is just so insanely tasty. So it's the chewy mochi on the outside, ice cream on the inside, and Sara Casagrande, my friend and occasional podcast host, just joined the Sweetie team. So she brought some samples over a couple of weeks ago. And I just think these are the tastiest mochi that I've had in quite a while.
[00:26:29] Ray Latif: They are delicious. I don't eat a lot of mochi, honestly. This is a really, really good product. The Via Coffee is really, really tasty. It's not as robust as some Via Coffee. It gives me more of like a latte kind of taste to it, but I like it.
[00:26:48] Mike Schneider: The green tea is my favorite, I think.
[00:26:50] Ray Latif: Like a Arabica, more like an Arabica coffee, but it's really tasty. Should I try the green tea? Yeah, try the green tea. Okay.
[00:26:56] Mike Schneider: I also have this Aleveum GLP-1 side effect support.
[00:27:02] Jeffrey Klineman: That was like Ray pronouncing a last name. Aleveum.
[00:27:05] Mike Schneider: There may be a better way to pronounce that. Aleveum GLP-1 support. So Jamie Bortak, who was at the start of CPG event that we co-hosted, He brought this to that event. So this is a GLP-1 side effect support stick pack. You obviously mix this with water and it is supposed to help with nausea, diarrhea, dehydration. And I don't think I've seen another GLP-1 support drink like this. This is actually made from a company that's local to us in Norwood and they make other sort of medical support drinks. There's one for like an oncology support product, that kind of thing. So there you have it.
[00:27:47] Ray Latif: Well, you know, for everyone that was worried about diarrhea and their GLP-1 drugs, now you have something that can alleviate those side effects.
[00:27:57] Mike Schneider: Exactly.
[00:27:57] Ray Latif: It's Aleveum.
[00:27:58] Mike Schneider: Exactly.
[00:27:59] Ray Latif: More than, yeah, Aleveum. There you go.
[00:28:02] Mike Schneider: Aleveum. That's right.
[00:28:05] Ray Latif: Well, congrats to Sarah. Please give her my best and let her know that it's exciting news for her to join the Sweetie team. And I would love to see her in December at Nosh Live in LA. That's when we're holding the greatest food event in the history of the world. I know, I'm a little biased. But in truth, the people that you've always wanted to meet in this industry, the retailers, the investors, the distributors, the service providers, they're all going to be there at Nosh Live. It's on December 4th and 5th in Marina Del Rey. And if you're not already registered, now's a good time to do so because you can actually save money on your ticket price. And within about a week's time, you're not going to be able to save money. So it's kind of a no-brainer to register now. If you have any questions about the event, you can always let us know. Send us a note to askatastereview.com. But all four of us are going to be there. Yeah, you'll get to see and possibly meet one of the greatest hosts of all time. One of the greatest Pitchflam hosts of all time, Ray Latif. Oh, I thought you were going to say Dick Clark, because I don't think Dick has been very difficult. Probably on a Sora video. Uh, and of course our BevNET Live event, December 7th through 9th, followed by Brewbound Live, which is December 10th and 11th. So a lot going on. We are doing a ton of preparation, ton of work behind the scenes to make these three of the best events that they can possibly be. And I know I'm really, really excited in particular for Nosh Live. BevNET Live is always just. I mean, just a spectacular show. Brewbound as well. This year's edition of Nosh Live is going to be second to none. So get your tickets. Do it today. Any questions, let us know. If you're wondering about or a little bit worried about how to navigate the show, we're going to be there. We will help you do that. We'll help make those introductions, those personal IRL introductions to people that you want to meet. So register now, noshlive.com, bevnetlive.com or Brewbound Live. That brings us to the end of this episode of Taste Radio. Thank you so much for listening. Taste Radio is a production of BevNET.com, Incorporated. Our audio engineer for Taste Radio is Joe Cracci. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt, and our video editor is Ryan Galang. Our social marketing manager is Amanda Smerlinski, and our designer is Amanda Huang. Just a reminder, if you like what you hear on Taste Radio, please share the podcast with friends and colleagues. And of course, we would love it if you could review us on the Apple Podcasts app or your listening platform of choice. Check us out on Instagram. Our handle is bevnettasteradio. As always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please send us an email to ask at Taste Radio.com. On behalf of the entire Taste Radio team, thank you for listening. And we'll talk to you next time. you 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 Krizis, and Head of Sales, Lucinda Aquat, 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?
[00:31:36] John Craven: So great. Excited to be here.
[00:31:38] 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?
[00:31:59] Jeffrey Klineman: 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 a 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.
[00:33:18] 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.
[00:33:25] John Craven: 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.
[00:34:11] Ray Latif: Andrew, let's just start off by talking about where the beverage industry is headed right now in broad terms and Why Fi is such a critical strategic investment for founders and businesses.
[00:34:21] Jeffrey Klineman: 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 a 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.
[00:35:44] 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?
[00:36:02] John Craven: 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 pay phone, 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.
[00:37:56] 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.
[00:38:07] Jeffrey Klineman: 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 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 gonna allow us to have an agentic 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.
[00:41:31] 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?
[00:41:59] John Craven: 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 vapinsights.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 Dia every day about this, and we're really excited to bring everyone more.
[00:42:20] 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.
[00:42:35] John Craven: Thank you, Ray.
