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 joined by my co-hosts. John Craven, Jackie Brugliera and Mike Schneider. In this episode, we return to an instant classic networking event hosted by naturally San Diego.
Earlier this month, I sat down with beverage industry veteran Kevin Klock, who's back in the game with his moringa infused brand Orange Toucan. And Keegan Fong, founder of Woon, a modern CPG brand, inspired by his family's beloved Chinese restaurants. I didn't get to try any Woon, but supposedly their restaurants are pretty damn awesome and I would love to visit them.
They're in la. I think both of 'em are. Now. We gotta make this happen. We're gonna make it happen. Yes, please press junket. Is that a thing anymore? 2025? Shh. I don't think they're gonna pay for us to go out there. Oh, well we're looking for any excuse to get outta here, Jackie. Not so much, but in the Boston area, we were hit with a major snowstorm.
I think we got 20 inches, which is not fun. Everyone's been digging out for the past two days, so I figure. Why don't we just take a road trip down south? How about South Florida? How's that sound to you, Mike? Uh, I mean, I'm not driving. Yeah, you're flying, right? I'm pretty happy about the snow 'cause I still need to cool off after the United wind of our arsenal.
Okay. You wanna go there? Huh? I already went there. All right. All right. You guys watched the Patriots game too? Yeah, that was, that was crazy. Yeah. Well, I've been on kind of a high because yes, United did beat Arsenal in in another instant classic. It was a really great game. No, that was a great game. Great goals by United.
They took their chance. They've. If they're doing all the right things right now and it, it shows. Yeah. I'm not gloating You brought it up so. No, it's true though to all United fans who True are listening out there. I'm glad we're in the midst of a nice week. 'cause anytime United wins, it's like the greatest thing ever that has ever happened.
Three more wins for a special haircut. Exactly. Exactly. No, I mentioned we're gonna head down to. Florida specifically to Miami. We're going to be hosting yet another meetup in that amazing city. This being the first of 2026, we have seven scheduled for this year in South Florida, will be our first stop.
February 18th, that's a Wednesday. The live podcast and networking event is going to be held at. Casal La Rubia, which is in the city's Wynwood neighborhood. We're gonna be there from five to 7:30 PM industry networking, adult and non alc Bevs Mike. But of course, Mike, John and I will be there to mingle and to muse.
Jackie is unable to come because she's hiking E Everest. Is that right? That's why's why you. That's why you can't come. Yes. Yes. Currently training actually for Everest. Yes. And you don't really hike Everest, by the way, folks. No. Just casually on a weekend. Just head on over day tripper. Once again, Wednesday, February 18th, we encourage you to BYOS.
What does that mean? It means bring your own samples. So if you are a founder, you're an operator, you're someone who works for a CPG company, please bring samples of your products because we wanna try them. And of course, other attendees want to as well. So if you want to attend, you're more than welcome to just to show up, but we would prefer, please, if you could register, please do so at Taste radio.com/events/miami, but I think we can shorten that.
We'll probably shorten that to Taste radio.com/miami. No. Yeah. Nope, not happening. It's just taste radio.com/events/miami. Okay. Obviously we need the.com on there. Okay. Also. Huge thank you to our partners for the event itself. Obviously, Casa La Rubia. We also have vibrant ingredients in Matriarch Wealth management partnering up with us for Miami.
So thank you so much to all of those amazing companies and firms. Casa La Rubia, owned by AB InBev too, so I don't know. Thank you to them as well. Yes, thank you to them as well. If you're listening and you're interested in partnering with us. For the Miami event or any of the other six meetups we're hosting this year, which include New York, Austin, Chicago, San Diego, San Francisco, and London.
Just let us know. We would love your support. We would love to host you for an interview and help you get the word out about what you're doing in this amazing industry of food and beverage. So just send us an email. You can reach us at ta, ask@tasteradio.com. You can email me directly, our latif@benet.com as well.
So, uh, Madonna, I'm gonna go there. Yeah, I'm just gonna put that out there. Madonna. Yeah, I, I really haven't listened to much Madonna music in a while, so I'm, I'm kind of an old school Madonna fan. Eighties, some nineties, but mostly eighties. I could see Voguing Vogue. I'm not, come on, let's see it. I need an AI video of.
No. Have videos of Ray. Ray. Yeah. I banned those. I banned those. Ray is a material girl. Would you settle for I love, I love material. That's a great song. I would settle for any of you voguing. Okay. We'll work on that. Yeah. Okay. I never really loved the song Papa. Don't Preach. But it's, it's a, it's a good song.
I like that song. Very popular song. It's getting weird. A good song. Yeah. Weird song, but good song. I think CPG companies are, are heating that message about not preaching. I, I just feel like there's a lot less specific marketing about not drinking alcohol, particularly for this month itself. And companies are trying to find new ways to communicate moderation.
Self guidance and optionality when it comes to consumption and lifestyle habits. I mean, I think the need for the companies making the products to be educators of things like dry January or sobriety is becoming. Less and less. I mean, it really probably isn't even necessary at this point, although dry January certainly presents an opportunity for awareness or, you know, new products and whatnot from companies that are producing adult non-alcoholic beverages.
So, but very different than a couple of years ago where I think, yeah, some brands were trying really, really hard to get signal over dry January. So. It's still a thing. We're seeing companies just treat it differently. They're saying, who cares about dry January? Instead of, as John said, just really leaning into it.
Yeah, I think consumers are more focused on balance. I think a lot of consumers are burnt out on like bad. You know, there's been so much advertising about sugar's, bad fat's, bad, alcohol's bad, and I think people just wanna be able to be more fluid in their decisions. So why not damp January? You know, why not just make better decisions?
You're seeing people drink less alcohol, but still drink alcohol. You're seeing people be flexitarians because, you know, they just want more flexibility in what they're consuming. You know, it really did not help dry January. What's that in the Boston area? 20 inches of snow and a and a, and Patriots gonna the Super Bowl.
But anyway. Okay. Damp January, you can drink for that. No, I mean, I don't know. I think it's one of those things where, you know, it's kinda like there's some people who like, you know, if you belong to a gym, it's like loaded with people in January who were like, I'm gonna turn over a new leaf. Try something, you know, whatever, get healthy to start the year.
I think that's kind of where dry January's at too. Which, you know, the question with it is obviously with the gym, uh, thing, there's like a lot of people that trail off and, you know, do people trail off or are they looking at it as, you know, lifestyle change or just something of, you know, maybe they'll moderate once in a while.
But yeah, it's definitely at like a, a different stage at this point. Yeah, I think dry January also aligned a lot with New Year's resolutions, and I've personally seen a lot of people maybe going away from resolutions and just being like, what do I wanna do generally in my life that is, you know, attainable, not something that I'm just gonna do for a couple weeks, and then.
Get, you know, bummed that I didn't continue. I mean, part of this is just the fact that people are a lot more in touch with their emotions and their goals. Going to therapy, talking about it with everybody that will listen. And so, you know, goal setting goes right along with that. So it's just a part of people's lives now.
I think that companies are recognizing everything that you guys just mentioned and are tailoring new marketing initiatives. To meet that consumer with whatever it is they're experiencing at this point in their lives. Recess, the brand of modern beverages, including their mood line of beverages, which are infused with magnesium intended to help you chill or relax or what have you.
They also market a great line of mocktails. They launched a new campaign earlier this month in which they. Just put out there, perfection is a terrible New Year's resolution. And they talk about how January doesn't need a new you, just a more balanced one. And the last part of the message is a drink, meaning recess for people.
Tired of pretending January changes everything, which I think is really the. You know, the, the truth here that no one has really wanted to say out loud, but people feel more comfortable saying that now. Well said recess. That was much better than I said it. Yeah, and so, you know, Ben Witty, who's the founder and CEO spoke about this in his story written by our dear friend and colleague, Martine Caballero.
He said, it's always been my view of recess that we are one of you not above you. We're not trying to speak down to you. And I think people connected with that idea. Because it's representative of reality. I do think alcohol serves a purpose in people's lives, and I think the whole conversation about the death of alcohol even amongst Gen Z is dramatically overstated, which I think he's hit the nail on the head on that one, in my opinion.
I also thought Athletic Brewing did a really good job with their campaign, where they used to say, you know, do a dry January, or whatever it was, and they crossed out the word dry. And inserted the word athletic, and I think it's really more about. Hey, try to be a better you or a better version, or a healthier version of you than like a different version of you that didn't exist before January.
And it speaks to athletics. Emphasis on helping people live better lives throughout the year versus just one month. Because as we know, so many people start out doing January and having an idea of what they want to accomplish from a lifestyle or wellness goals, and then they end up. Stopping mid month or doing it for a month and then going and you know, eng gorging on food or alcohol once February 1st begins.
Lastly, I had an opportunity to speak with the brilliant Amy Taylor, who's the CEO of Zia. We featured that episode or featured that interview in an episode that was published on Tuesday of this week. Folks who know Amy know that she was a long time. Marketing executive and president of Red Bull North America for almost two decades.
She was with the company almost as soon as they came to the United States, and now she's the CEO of Zevia, which is a brand of modern sodas that is sweetened with Stevia. Now, I know people have preconceived notions about Stevia and Zevia, but in this interview you'll understand why you might wanna give it another.
But their campaign this year was titled Detox, and they were trying to get people to detox from their high calorie, high sugar sodas. And I love this. I love this, this headline, or at least this tagline, quit soda with soda. So they're not telling you don't drink soda. They're just saying, drink a better version of soda.
And one of the most poignant moments in the interview with Amy was when she said. Don't lecture the consumer. One of the reasons we were so specific about what we put on our package is that we're gonna say. What we are on our package. And if in an interested, if an in interested consumer wants to go deeper, they can double click on our website.
But beyond that, the most credible form of communication is other people talking about us. In other words, the more you talk about yourself is one thing or the other, the more people are gonna tune out unless it's someone they trust. Like people don't necessarily trust brands. Like we always talk about this, like how do you build trust with a consumer?
You build trust by other people. Telling you about why they should like this product or why they might take a second chance or a second look at a, a, a brand like Zevia. I like them telling you what it is as well because there's so much, this isn't, this isn't in in marketing right now that I think we've forgotten to really be able to explain what we do simply.
And that's, that's the key. Yeah, I think you really nailed it there, Mike. There's so much of what we are not or what we don't have, but what are you. I mean, this is a real big problem in politics, right? I mean, everyone always talks about, well, that guy's doing that, or this person's doing that, and someone's like, well, what are you doing?
Right? I mean, I mean, that is an issue for sure. That's, that's one of the, one of a few issues that are happening in modern American politics. But look, I think it, it's pretty hard to really, truly do that in kind of like an absolutist way though. Sure. Like ZVS still will call itself zero calories, right. So like you're kind of doing it right there.
And you know, I agree. Like for marketing copy, like talking about who you are versus what you aren't is good. But yeah, I think that's a real, a real challenge right now for brands across a lot of different categories. How so? I mean, just that it can't truly be like. A positive. Like this is what we are, and completely avoiding what you aren't.
Here's what I'll say, and we've talked about this ad nauseum on the podcast, but I'll bring it up one more time. Plant-based meat, right? Plant-based meat often talks about what they're not, when they're not animal-based protein, but what are you, and I think once they get into the what are you, what are your ingredients, what do you, what comprises this meat that you're selling that's.
Where they really run into trouble. It's hard because they always have to compare themselves to the texture or the taste of animal-based protein. And once you start digging in a little bit, you're like, okay, well if it tastes like this and it, the texture is like this, but it has 18 times the number of ingredients.
I'm a little wary of that. Mm-hmm. So I think that's where what you were kind of referring to. Another important thing to do is to not throw the kitchen sink at your marketing too. Because if you try to talk about all the things that your beverage is, or your, or your food is on front of pack, well you're gonna end up with an with an eye chart.
And so it's important to make decisions, which I think is another thing they're trying to do here. I would advise folks to continue thinking about moderation and giving the consumer sort of self determinism and how they think about and use your product. And certainly we're seeing a lot of that. In terms of user generated content on social media and how that is enhancing and informing marketing campaigns for CPG companies.
So I imagine in 2026 we'll continue to see a lot more of this. Let, let's, let's help the consumer. Make a good informed decision versus telling them what to do. Obviously, dry January is an opportunity for a lot of folks to try new non-alcoholic products that they may not have considered in the past, and I ironically visited the Mohegan San Wine and Food Fest this past weekend.
Now. Uh, it is what it, what you might expect it to be. It is a festival, three day festival where they feature all kinds of wines from around the world. They feature celebrity chefs who are there cooking up delicious foods. This could be branded the Ray Latif Festival for, I was there for a handful of hours on, on one day, so I wasn't there very long.
But during the grand tasting part of this event, in addition to all the wine producers they have at this tasting, they had a number of distilleries and breweries that were marketing their products. And so there's a local. Company here in the Boston area known as Bully Boy. Bully Boy Distillers. If you recall, we sat down with the founders a few years ago at their location in New Market Square in Boston.
So they have some fantastic whiskeys. They make great bourbon. They also make some great bottled cocktails. They have a Negroni in a Manhattan. They're fantastic. They recently introduced some spirit free cocktails because I think they recognize that. Not everyone is gonna want to drink bourbon and Negroes all the time.
So they have two varieties. These are called intermezzo. Great name, right? Sure. Intermezzo. So they have an alpine high ball and they have a sunset spritz. Let's start with the alpine high ball, which is inspired by the flavors of Alpine tomorrow and crafted without the buzz for those in between moments.
And if you notice on the can, which is beautifully designed, they have a zebra on the lower. Right hand corner of the label. Why zebra striping. Right. Does everyone know what zebra striping is? Yes, I do. Jackie, you're look confused. Is that when you alternate drinks? Yeah. Yeah, that's, well, you, you go in between alcohol.
No alcohol. Alcohol. No alcohol. All right, so that's darker than I thought this was gonna be. The alpine one. It doesn't have it. It's not cold. Sorry guys. It's okay. All right. That's for Mr. Craven. That's over the laptop.
Pretty solid. That's very tasty. Yeah, that's good stuff. I bet it'd even be better. Really cold, but uh, or the splash of booze. Geez, guys. There you go. Wow. Okay, let's try this. Uh, sunset Spritz. Which is inspired by coastal Italian libations and crafted again without the buzz for those in between moments.
All right. I like the way that sits with you after you've already sipped it. Yeah. This, this, this feels very much like a Campari spritz or an apal spritz kind of. That's what looks like, certainly looks like one. Just a, just a scooch. That's good. You don't wanna get all banged up. No on and knock off. I can drive home.
Okay. Well done. I think I like the first one better, but that's solid too. Uh, I think I like the sunset better, but the first, they're both good. Yeah. The first one is definitely a different type of cocktail. I don't know what the. What the comparison would be What? What the comparable cocktail would be for the Alpine one.
Some sort of other spritz. I don't know. Okay. You go spritz. I'm throwing names. Weird cold vibe going on. Bully Boy, distillers fantastic brand. And so I also learned that they're going to bring more of these to market as well as their own canned cocktails that we'll be seeing in the months to come. I've got a product, I like it already.
It's called Pretentious Coffee with a tagline of probably too good for you. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. That's kind of preachy, right? Yeah. We'll have to have a, uh, I don't know, barista test after here. It's in tennis ball cans. I like it. It's, uh, yeah, it feels like a tennis ball can, but it's, are those beans?
It's coffee beans in. Okay. A, uh, I don't know. It kind of has the footprint of like a 19.2 like a Pringles can. Yeah. Geez, bro. Oh my goodness. Wow. Yeah, it popped open. Blow it in. Whoa. Maybe we, we had it too long. I don't know. Okay. I'm gonna, I'm gonna explain, I'm going shook it up. Explain to listeners what, actually, I didn't get hit by that, but yeah, that was wild.
No, like, okay, so I'm, Sean popped open a can. I'm supposed to slowly open it and I just yanked it like, so Did you know, do you recall Blue Bottle had a similar smells pretty awesome. It says roasted to perfection. Don't screw it up and look what you just did. Screwed it up. I already screwed it up. Screwed it up.
Do you recall Blue Bottle had a, had a similar package where they sealed their beans in a can, just like that, and as soon as it was on the market, it was off the market. And I wonder if that's the reason why, I mean, because that's why if when you buy coffee beans Yeah, they have that little vent ventilation thing on the front of the, of the front of the back.
Yeah. Those little seals are like crowned a lo uh, yeah. There's no ventilation here, hence. The explosion? Well, I don't know. It smells really good, but it almost killed you. Almost kill me. Come on. I really like the idea of artisanal nihilism. That's pretty great on the. On the can here. And I'm excited for this one to blow up too.
So, so yeah, we're gonna have a cortado testament. Uh, real quick, what are the two skews we have here? Oh, reserve. And this is just is, this is just whole bean coffee and that one's reserve. Yeah. All right. Pretentious coffee. Pretentious and all serious, interesting packaging format. I do want to hear from the founders about how you should open it without, let's put the lid back on.
Well, yeah. And, uh, let's try it later. Okay. Without the explosion. Moving on to a snack product. Okay. Fresh from the mailbag. Here we have munches. Tortilla chips with beef tallow. Oh yeah. What's the name of the brand? Munches. How do you, how do you spell that? M-A-N-C-H-A-S. Mu Mancha. Okay. Let's see here.
Anyone munches? Anyone? Yes. Pass over the mic. Beef Talla. Okay, so these are tortilla chips. Oh, look at that. I like the, uh, design there. It's a little throwback ish. It's, it's a, looks like a cow. What I would describe as a cowgirl riding giraffe slash horse. Weird. Interesting. That is. Accurate. It's supposed to be a horse, but it does look giraffe.
Yes, I mean def definitely tastes like a tortilla chip with beef Tao. I did try one potato chip one time with beef tallow, and it's just the beef Tao really is very strong flavor. It's assertive. It's assertive. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I like this. Can we talk about beef towel for a second? Yeah, go ahead. Only second.
Are you gonna start rubbing it? Only second. Can you start, are you gonna start rubbing it over your face or No, I'm good. I, I know beef towel has been a hot ingredient of late, particularly for fried products, potato chips, ort chips, what have you. You know, it's used a lot in London or in England when they're making fried fish.
I think that's the traditional way of frying fish is using beef talo. I think. For as much enthusiasm as there is for the ingredient in our industry. Mm-hmm. I think there's going to be a massive education hurdle. For this to become a mainstream thing, you know, we're, we're already seeing it pop up in frozen foods, french fries.
You know, Jesse and Ben's is a good example of a frozen french fry brand that uses beef towel for some of their products. Again, especially with all the Maha stuff going on, I almost feel like it's gonna be kind of divisive beef towel. So I would caution brands. That are really embracing this ingredient before they go too deep.
It's definitely a test to learn kind of thing. For me it is. I mean, I think if I were giving constructive feedback to Manchas, I think there are two things that stand out for me. One is the actual tortilla chip isn't like the fanciest tortilla chip I've ever had. And two is just the size of the bag seems really, really small, relative to like your standard giant ass bag of tortilla chips.
It's packed. It's a, it's a packed bag. It it is. And it's not, you know, a lot of tortilla chips come into one of those bags, a hundred percent tons of air. I think that's just one of those things that, from a shelf presence perspective, I think is, you know, it's kinda like a proven thing in the chip category.
So the chips are kind of mini. But they're still good dipping chips. Yeah, definitely would be good Dipping chips, I appreciate that for sure. And they're, 'cause they're thick enough. Yeah. At this point it very much feels like a specialty food brand, a brand that you would definitely see in Eron. I think as they continue to think about scaling, they may have to move into a different size package for sure.
They might have to think about their giraffe horse. It's a cute photo. I mean it's, it's a, it's a great art artist. How would you describe that art? It's like caricature art kind of thing. Yeah. Character art, art. Artisanal character art. I like it. Okay. Fair enough. Jackie, what do you got over there? You got all kinds of.
Like I have a couple things. What? What is that? Oh, I saw there was in the office. Yeah. Yeah. So these guys were at Fancy Fair called Long Weekend, and they are a line of instant premium, instant soup. So all the ingredients are freeze dried. You just add hot water and then you have a delicious soup and they have carrot ginger.
They have minione, we got Thai coconut curry, and then we also have tomato bisque. And I tried these at the show and they were really, really good. The flavor was definitely, you know, nuanced and complex and very low calorie too, like a whole thing of the Thai Curry's. Only 200 calories and everything else looks good on the ingredient panel too.
I'm, I'm really liking, you know, just. Dehydrated freeze dried products these days, I think like they've been really tasty. Like the Cumin Club, they have really good products too. Oh yeah. That's phenomenal. You just add water and it's like, wow, this is delicious. So, yeah. And it's shelf stable. So can we talk about the Cumin Club for a second?
I mean, I, yeah. Well, I grabbed those by the way, when I saw 12 to 16 inches of snow coming, I grabbed, I grabbed the long weekend, 'cause long weekend coming obviously. So, ew, I just got that human club. I used to kind of like, you know, the Trader Joe's. Packs of, of doll and, uh, masala and that are not freeze dried or hydrate.
Right. They're not freeze dried. Yeah. And now that I've had Cumin Club, I can't even eat those anymore because Cuban Club is so good. It's so good. And it's so simple. Like you just add water and in a couple minutes you have something that tastes delicious. In a couple minutes, you're at deum. We featured Cumin Club in a recent episode of Elevator Talk that was published on January 21st.
Brilliant episode. I highly recommend you check it out. It was co-hosted by our dear friend, Caroline Grace of product in Prosper. And we also featured a brand called Green and Sunny and Chuka Sauce, which everyone knows Chuka Sauce if you attended Noosh Live. What? An episode. Yeah. It really is a great one.
And just, uh, pitch for TA for Elevator Talk. If you're interested in participating in a future episode of that show, just let us know or you can head to taste radio.com dropdown menu. You'll see a tab that says Elevator Talk and how to apply. If this was a video show, we'd definitely have, uh. Joe, go back to when John opened the can and have it blow up again.
Why are we, why are we coming back to that? That was very scary actually. I was not prepared for that. It was awesome. Yeah, it was awesome. Oh geez. Mike's got a shot. I've got a shot today with an interesting name. It's boop, BOOP, which is boop, pretty close to another word. So it, it opens up some really great, some really great potential, you know.
Uh, tagline's, like I boop today, or what's the function? I, boop, myself. You can boop someone. It's clearly not for refreshment. What is it? What is it for? It's a protein shot. Oh, a protein shot. Okay. It's awesome by the way. Okay. This is Clementine, 15 grams of protein from whey and yeah. Nice little shot. It's 70 calories.
That looks like the whey was on the top there. I shook it up. How much protein, how many grams of protein in it? It is, I mean. It's pretty hard to get past the way because it's only a small three ounce shot, but 15 grams of protein, 70 calories and tasty flavor. You should, uh, hide those in the office and boop, people, like people, ice people.
I just keep bing myself. I also have another product here called Chili Water. John has it as well. Can of water. Can of water, and it's not chili as in spicy. It's C-H-I-L-L-Y. I was asking Colin about that. That too. There's a few interesting things here that causes you to ask questions about chili water.
First of all, is it spicy? Second of all, what if it's not cold? Is it one of those cans that turns blue when it's just the right temperature? Like, you know those beer cans do? No. No, it's just good water. Okay with 6.4 to 6.6 pH. Interesting. The top of the can asks the consumer. Is one can enough? I don't think so.
Mm-hmm. Is that trademarked? It is. I love it. Yeah. Lastly, I wanna highlight a brand we always talk about on this show, which is like air, like air. Maker of Puff, and they always describe it as better than popcorn. They have a new limited edition flavor where they have partnered with Copper Cow Coffee to create a Vietnamese coffee flavored puff corn.
It is delicious. I know that we've, or at least John is mentioned that the savory flavors or more to his liking than the sweet ones is one I think kind of. Straddles that line. I was gonna say, it's coffee. So yeah, you get a, you get a good amount of that savory and sweet, and it really does have a strong Vietnamese coffee influence to it.
You're getting some of that condensed, sweetened milk, some of the bitterness of the coffee, just a hint of the bitterness and of course the saltiness of the puff corn. So another really great limited edition product from like air.
Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now I am honored to be sitting down with Kevin Klock, who's the co-founder and CEO of Orange Toucan. Kevin, it's great to see you. Yeah, great to see you as well. Yeah. It's been a while. You and I have known each other for some time and you're back at it. Yeah. In the beverage industry with a brand called Orange Toucan, and I really love what you're doing.
It's differentiated, it's playful, it's fun, it's functional. It's got a lot of things going for it. Where did this idea come from and, and just talk about what Orange Toucan is and where the idea came from. Yeah. Well, the idea came from, someone approached me and said they had some issues with their health and they were trying to create what they thought was the most functional, natural, plant-based beverage they could ever create and do it right.
And guy by the name of Rob Snell and he says, Kevin, you ever heard of Moringa? No. And the minute I looked up moringa, I'm like, why is no one doing this? So. I went over, met Rob in Europe and worked on the beverage with them, and then we got a guy by the name of Sandy Wheeler involved. Sandy's the founder of Boflex, ends up, oh wow.
He's from the same town as I, and I told him about moringa and so he came in as a co-founder as well. And what we realized is moringa is probably one of the best anti-inflammatory natural products that there is out there. And it's a plant derived ingredient. Absolutely. moringa is a plant itself.
Moringa is a plant itself, and in this can is 500 milligrams of moringa leaves, ginger and turmeric is in there, which helps bring the identifier as being an anti-inflammatory. Well, Sandy being a diabetic. From age agent origin in Vietnam started drinking the beverage, obviously when we started selling it.
And suddenly his A1C dropped from 8.9 to 6.8 and his Lantus insulin dropped from 26 to 18, which is actually remarkable. I know what insulin is. What's A1C? So A1C is a measure of your diabetes. Oh, okay. Your, your blood sugar. Okay. So both of are remarkable things and what we hear most, we've been reaching out and talking to our, the heavy users.
And it's the anti-inflammatory messages really coming across a lot of people, chronic pain, those type of things. They're seeing reduction by drinking orange toucan. Are people already familiar with Morengo when they encounter or introduce to orange Toucan, or is it something where they approach this brand and say, oh, this is a really good looking, can I love the flavors that you offer?
Oh, and it has this functional benefit as well. Yeah, well the health and wellness community actually knows moringa fairly well, so that's kind of where the target goes first. Uh, the natural channel, that kind of stuff. But like for instance, this Friday we signed Ken Rideout, who is a influencer who's the fastest marathoner over the age of 50.
He's had cortisol problems. I started drinking moringa, and this is really working well for him. He's highly respected in the health and wellness community, so I think as selling online and stuff. Targeting of the health and wellness a already has some level of awareness to get it started. And you know, we think this is a product where people are gonna tell their friends and that's how it will work more into the mainstream.
It's also why you almost see us really focused on retail at this point is because, to your point, the overall messaging would be more difficult on the shelf than it is per se, when we can have a one-on-one relationship through email and Instagram and all that. I let off by saying it's fun, it's playful, and I'm talking about the packaging and the brand name too.
Orange uc can feels pretty playful, but you have these just gorgeous cans. These are almost 11 ounce slim cans and they have pastel colors and there's little tucan in the middle of the logo, and there's some just great flavors. There's a watermelon and lime, there's a dragon fruit and mangosteen, and there's a lemon, lime and mango.
And if I didn't know better, if I didn't see moringa infused on the front of the can, I would think. These are refreshment beverages, almost sodas in fact. Why do you choose the positioning or I guess, what is the positioning of this product? Are you leading with functional beverage? Are you leading with sparkling drink or how, how are you talking about it?
So, uh, it's not sparkling, so that's one of the things. Okay. But being in a can, that's a, you know, a great point would, yeah. A lot of people would think. And that's actually, we got rid of the silver can. We had, because we think that was one of the miscommunications that we were making as far as the overall target goes.
Again, this is why we're online is, is really to be able to have that communication about moringa and then finding those proper influencers who can help us communicate the messaging around it. A lot of people, they'll see the can, like you said, and see it's fun and playful, but it's gonna be more about getting in the proper influencers who can also, that people trust what they say.
There's been an awful lot of beverages out there that, you know, make claims, but ultimately. They aren't functional. And what's really the reason why I was willing to get into this is, is we're leading with functionality and it's anti-inflammatory and it also is blood sugar reduction, which is badly needed in this country.
So the biggest challenge, and as you know, as you know, when you can appeal to the masses, you gotta be careful, you've gotta stay more targeted. What's the price point for can? So we sell it online, it's 39.99 for a case. And it's a 12. It's a 12 pack. Yep. And great thing about it is it's aseptic, so there's no preservatives, there's no added sugar, there's no dyes, there's no flavorants.
It's just plain juice. And then the other thing that's exciting is the ginger and tur come in liquid form, so we're actually using. Juice not, you know, something that's been processed and created in the granules, shipped overseas or whatnot. Yeah, each variety comes with ginger and turmeric infused as well.
Mm-hmm. So, ginger, turmeric, moringa. Yeah. This definitely feels like a functional beverage that a lot of people would enjoy drinking. Are you having fun? Yeah. Well it, it's crazy to think, you know, especially being here with Ray, you know, you used to question me about natural and um. Maybe more simple ingredients going down that path with some of the beverages.
I was when you were with Sparkling Ice. Yeah, when I started talking Rain, the maker of sparkling ice. Yeah. Yeah. So it is, I find it kind of ironic I'm back here talking to you about this great functional plant-based product that we're producing and uh, bringing in from Thailand. Yeah. Very cool stuff. Well, Kevin, thank you so much for taking the time.
Yeah. Like I said, let's definitely stay in touch. Yeah, it was a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ray. Yeah.
Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now I am honored to be sitting down with Keegan Fong, who is the founder of Woon. Keegan. It's great to see you. Yeah, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Yeah. Woon. I love the name of your brand. Does it have a specific meaning? Yeah, so Woon actually means bowl in Cantonese.
Okay. And we're a restaurant, so a lot of the food we serve is out of a bowl. So just wanted to think of a name that was. Easy to say was relatable, was sounded Asian, sounded Chinese, and, and, uh, yeah, that one stuck. And you know, no trademarks existing for it. So yeah. I love when restaurants have such a great following.
Such that their patrons are like, Hey, can I make some of this food at home? And you're typically like, ha ha ha. There's no chance you can make this at home, but maybe, maybe if we create some of these ingredients, maybe you can come close to what we're making at home. And your restaurants are quite popular.
You have, how many restaurants do you have? We have two. Yeah, two. And they're not in San Diego, in la. Yeah, in la. Okay. Yeah. And I mentioned San Diego 'cause we're here at the Naturally San Diego event at the Presto in San Diego. And. You created, I kinda left the cat outta the bag There you have created a line of consumer products that are also known as Woon.
Yes. Talk about the origins of this concept. What you're selling and where the products are sold. Yeah, so Woon began as a restaurant, as I mentioned, you know, all original recipes from my mom, homestyle, Chinese Food First location opened seven years ago, a year before COVID. Mm-hmm. Our second location has been open in Pasadena for just over a year.
But that first location, you know, going into COVID, I think it was pretty natural for a lot of restaurants to, to figure out ways to diversify, to figure out ways to bring in a little bit more revenue and, and new verticals. And for us, you know, my background is not from the food and beverage industry. I came from marketing in apparel in the skate and surf industry.
Totally different from food and bev, but my mind naturally went to how do I create a product that I can market that I can. You know, share the same story of the restaurant, but outside of the four walls, we're in San Diego. I lived down here for 10 years and, and I, I missed la I missed kind of the, the culture and the food scene up there, especially my mom's, you know, home cooking.
And that's where I took a chance and was just like, I just want to try and share that story with a bunch of people. And I think we were able to create a bit of a following. And, and CPG was kind of a natural transition, especially during COVID when we really needed to get out there and. So I did a lot of research during COVID and was able to test the market and it slowly and organically caught on.
And now, you know, we're, we're sold nationally in over 500 doors. Wow. And, and a lot of it has happened organically, which I'm very proud of. And I think now we're at the stage where we're, we're at this show where now we have to actually. Work our way into putting it into market and And by this show you mean the winter fancy fair?
Yes. That's also being held here in San Diego. So the products that you sell, what are they specifically and what use case do people have for them? For sure. I mean, you mentioned it earlier, right? Like a lot of people were like, how do we make this food at home? And for us it was, we would love to share.
This food outside of the four walls of the restaurants. And so our main two SKUs that are in a lot of grocery Ashley are a hot sauce that we call Mama's Way hot sauce. Okay. My mom growing up taught us to use a lot of vinegar with our hot sauce. So it's a very acidic vinegar based Fresno hot sauce. It's great for Chinese food, but it's great on tacos, pizza, eggs, like whatever you want.
Very acidic. It's bright. Fresno based. And the other sauce that we focus on is a stir fry sauce. So that's what we use in the restaurant to cook all our noodles. It's what we marinate our meat in. And you can use that to cook anything. You can cook veggies with it. Tofu fish, you can marinate meats with it.
So those two are what we focus on through our distribution channels. And then we also offer like 15 additional SKUs nationwide that are. That are more on smaller scale. So that's anything from like our seasonings, our, our dry goods of like white rice, black rice, dried shiitake mushrooms, and our frozen noodles that we serve in house.
So it's really just taking everything we use in the restaurant and being able to, to create like a, a cheat sheet for a pantry. For someone who's trying to learn how to cook Chinese food, I assume a lot of what you sold at the outset was C two C selling online, and now you're in 500 stores, 500 plus stores nationwide.
Yeah. Any learnings that you could apply from selling online to brick and mortar? Yeah, I mean, I think for us it was really being able to build that foundation and build that following organically first to help support the wholesale in retail. Mm-hmm. Business, you know, granted. We're not famously known nationwide, but I think you got two, you got two restaurants.
So, but we, yeah, we have two restaurants, which are pretty regional, but I think it helped to at least build that following, you know, whether it is through social media and that online presence, which someone in New York now recognizes it and can be like, oh, that's that restaurant from la. I want to give it a shot out here.
So they go hand in hand. I think they help each other and, and vice versa. You know, we're in the fresh market in 22 states and. You know, I think someone in Texas is gonna be like, oh, what is this? And then they'll check us out online and, and discover that we actually are a restaurant in la. So I think it kind of, those two things kind of help each other out.
It's kind of just, uh, a full circle where one feeds into the other. Exactly. But you don't necessarily know exactly from where. So. Exactly. Really interesting. And I feel like it's a business that you're gonna learn a lot about as you continue to build it. But in the meantime, it feels like you're gonna help make people's nights a lot easier by creating.
Products that can help them make delicious food, which is I hope so. I mean, that's, that's why we're all here, right? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I, I, yeah, I appreciate that, and that's really the goal. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Keegan, it's been so great speaking with you. Thank you so much for taking the time. Let's definitely stay in touch and I definitely wanna try some of your products soon.
Definitely. Thanks so much, Ray. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you.
