[00:00:10] Mike Schneider: Hello, dear friends, and thanks for tuning in to Taste Radio, the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food or beverage. I'm Mike Schneider filling in for Ray Latif, and I'm with my co-host for this episode, John Craven and Jacqui Brugliera. Ray left us with some notes here, you guys, and apparently I got parole. Was I in jail again? And Ray's still in the chute.
[00:00:30] John Craven: Yeah. Whenever you leave, you're in jail. It's the only reason.
[00:00:34] Jacqui Brugliera: That was in Ray's notes that he left. And I think we read last time. Federal this time.
[00:00:41] John Craven: Yeah, you got out quick though.
[00:00:42] Mike Schneider: Yeah. Uh, good for me. Good for me. Well, we've got tons to talk about here, starting with Spindrift Spiked. We missed you already. What's going on with Spindrift Spiked?
[00:00:52] Jacqui Brugliera: Uh, they canceled it.
[00:00:53] Mike Schneider: I know.
[00:00:53] Jacqui Brugliera: Why?
[00:00:53] Mike Schneider: Yeah, they spiked the Spiked. We talked about Spindrift Spiked initially. We talked about it being a whole other business from, you know, Spindrift, the classic Spindrift product. It's an alcohol business. So why do you think they canceled this, John?
[00:01:05] Jacqui Brugliera: I think because it is a whole other business. Yeah, I mean, I think they kind of alluded to the fact that it wasn't a bad business. I don't know how big it was, but certainly bigger than a lot of standalone brands. But I think it makes more sense for them, especially under their new ownership to just focus on growth for the core Spindrift products. So I don't know, I can sort of appreciate a company that just owns up to that and moves on.
[00:01:35] John Craven: Yeah, times have also changed. I think when they first launched, Spindrift Spiked, hard seltzers were growing exponentially, and now we've seen that kind of plateau, maybe decline a little bit. People are continuing to drink less, so why not double down on their non-alc, which is their flagship?
[00:01:54] Mike Schneider: That's interesting. The Brewbound podcast talked about Gen Z drinking and them being very into High Noon, aside from the black cherry, which I guess is on the outs right now. Don't get a variety packed with black cherry?
[00:02:07] John Craven: Yeah, I saw that. Zoe's like, no, do not do it.
[00:02:11] Mike Schneider: Okay. So check out that episode of the Brewbound podcast, uh, the latest episode of the Brewbound podcast for that. We've also seen Spindrift dip their toe into non-alc with some of the new flavors that they've come out with.
[00:02:22] John Craven: Sodas.
[00:02:22] Mike Schneider: Well, they've got sodas, but their Spindrift Classic also has some flavors that are like cocktail inspired. Like yuzu? Like Bellini.
[00:02:30] Jacqui Brugliera: Bellini. Oh, like those. Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think that's kind of the point of what we started with is just, there's a lot of different places that that brand can play that are non-alc and closer to the core business.
[00:02:44] Mike Schneider: Right. Closer to the core business. So sticking to that core business. Is this a indication that, you know, other businesses should kind of raise their eyebrow if they're thinking of going from just traditional non-alcoholic beverage into the alc space?
[00:02:58] Jacqui Brugliera: I mean, I think a lot of companies that dip their toe in a Bev-Alc, you know, once they get into the wonderful world of the three-tier system, there's reasons to be skittish and probably be happy for what you have without that. Agreed.
[00:03:16] Mike Schneider: Big congratulations to Mooski, who is a maker of chilled oat bars. There you Mooski and Painterland Sisters, who make a high-end yogurt, each of which have finalized seven-figure funding rounds. Is this a step in the right direction for the industry? Is this a, hey, people are opening their checkbooks?
[00:03:34] Jacqui Brugliera: I mean, I'm not really sure fundraisers really ever are steps in the wrong direction. Well, at least with the merging brands. I mean, obviously there's bigger companies that raise money or, you know, their valuations are lower than they were before that maybe aren't a step forward. But, uh, no, I think those two are, I mean, two great, uh, well, Moosky's been around a little longer than Painterland Sisters, but two great, you know, up and coming brands.
[00:04:00] John Craven: So, yeah, both are delicious. I was introduced to both of them actually at Nosh live. And I remember sampling Peter land sisters from the sample fridge. And that was like my breakfast every morning. That yogurt is delicious.
[00:04:14] Mike Schneider: Yeah, they've got some great flavors. The yogurt is Real Goods. And Moosky is one of those where you have to be careful because before you know it, you've eaten three.
[00:04:23] John Craven: Yeah. So true. Sneaky good. Sneaky good.
[00:04:26] Mike Schneider: Sneaky good. Both of them, really nice branding, quality positioning, and great founders too. Yeah. What else you got in the notes, Mike? What else we have to cover today? Well, we've got meetups, meetups, meetups, meetups, meetups. Are we having more meetups? We're having some more meetups. We didn't talk about this last week or any prior episodes. We've never talked about our meetups that are coming up in San Diego, San Francisco, and of course, London.
[00:04:51] John Craven: Yeah, I believe you both are coming my way. We're kicking it off with a San Diego meetup on September 16th. And then we are doing a San Francisco meetup right after that on September 18th, and then headed back to London on October 2nd. And all of these happen from 5 to 7 p.m. in a variety of different locations. Definitely want everyone to bring their samples. There's going to be great networking and then also have some live Taste Radio podcast recordings.
[00:05:19] Jacqui Brugliera: Gonna be fun. And Mike, you probably didn't listen to last week's podcast, where I talked about our transportation from San Diego to San Francisco, rented us a nice station wagon. Is it a Woody? You're in that back weird area that doesn't have seats.
[00:05:34] Mike Schneider: I hope so. I hope it's just like the one that my dad was trying to sell when I, and when I was eight years old, I walked in the garage and he had a buyer. And I said, we finally found somebody dumb enough to buy our car. There you go.
[00:05:43] John Craven: Are those the ones that had, like, the seats that were facing backwards so you could just stare at the car behind you?
[00:05:47] Mike Schneider: Yeah, you could face backwards. They had, like, fake wood panels.
[00:05:50] John Craven: Yeah.
[00:05:51] Mike Schneider: And they were like... I used to say, even when I was a kid, this is like a boat and the cops can't pull us over. But if you got in an accident... It has to be the Coast Guard.
[00:05:59] Jacqui Brugliera: If you got in an accident in one of those, you flew just straight out the window. Oh, was that you? Yeah. But no, we didn't talk about that last week, and that's not true. I don't know. It would be a long ride. Does Alaska Airlines count as a station wagon? I don't know. But anyway. Oh, poor Alaska. That's a decent airline. Come on. It's one of those, I don't know, what's the affiliate of Alaska? Delta. No, no, no. Like the, that does the regional flights. So it's one of those like Alaska, but it's actually some other, well, not a puddle jumper, but it's, it's, it says Alaska on the outside, but it's for liability. Powered by spirit. For liability reasons, they make someone else fly.
[00:06:37] John Craven: Powered by hipsters.
[00:06:41] Mike Schneider: One can dream. Amazing. Well, to find out more about those meetups, if you want to come to San Diego, it's Taste Radio slash San Diego.
[00:06:48] Jacqui Brugliera: We're going with Taste Radio slash meetups. So Mike doesn't awkwardly have to read a list of URLs.
[00:06:54] John Craven: Yeah. Just go there. Everything is there.
[00:06:56] Mike Schneider: We can do Taste Radio slash meetup. Sure. You can go there, but obviously now you know the code. So if there's a specific one you want to look at.
[00:07:03] Jacqui Brugliera: Just don't go to Taste Radio slash Cleveland. Maybe next year.
[00:07:08] Mike Schneider: Poor Cleveland. There's a lot of great things going on. Terranian Chips is in Cleveland. We got Chutni Punch in Cleveland. You got Oathouse in Cleveland.
[00:07:15] Jacqui Brugliera: There's a lot of good stuff going on there. I'm only crapping on it because you're from there. But I did a stint there. I know, you did a stint there too. It's kind of like jail, but anyway. Sorry, Cleveland. I'm kidding. That's actually where I was last week.
[00:07:28] Mike Schneider: That's when I got paroled from Cleveland.
[00:07:29] Jacqui Brugliera: We did last week when we had Monica on, talk about Taste Radio Kansas City. She's kind of luring us over. And she invited all of our podcast listeners to her house.
[00:07:40] John Craven: Yeah. We're going to host it in our pink living room.
[00:07:44] Mike Schneider: She has gone pink pony club. Yeah.
[00:07:46] John Craven: Yes. Yes.
[00:07:47] Mike Schneider: Keep on dancing in the pink living room. Please don't do that. Jackie, what you got over there for products?
[00:07:54] John Craven: I was just drinking a Spindrift, because we're talking about Spindrift, but I also have- Was it Spikes?
[00:07:59] Mike Schneider: A little early for Spikes.
[00:08:00] John Craven: It's not the Spikes version. It's just a nice sparkling lime. But I also have Throne Sport Coffee. I have their Variety Pack. So I have their French Vanilla Latte, their Mocha Java Latte, their Coffee Latte, and then one more, the Salted Caramel Latte. So I'll be jacked up on caffeine today. Oh boy. Yeah. But yeah, Patrick Mahomes-backed Throne Sport coffee. I know Ray did an interview with them, so check out that episode. But yeah, solid packaging, solid product. And I like that they have a variety pack so I can try all of them.
[00:08:37] Mike Schneider: Jackie, unlike the Pocky chip, where I did not advise you not to do the one chip challenge, I'm going to advise you to not drink all of those coffees in one day. So much caffeine.
[00:08:48] John Craven: Yeah, I'd end up on the floor.
[00:08:49] Mike Schneider: I drank a whole two liter of Mountain Dew once, and that was not a good experience. Don't do it.
[00:08:55] Jacqui Brugliera: Good call. Yeah, I was in college. Good call.
[00:08:56] Mike Schneider: Of course. What do you got, John?
[00:08:58] Jacqui Brugliera: I have some cookies from Al's Real Goods.
[00:09:02] Mike Schneider: So on top of the package of these, it says kiss my cookie, which I thought was the name of the cookie. It does. Thank goodness it's not.
[00:09:08] Jacqui Brugliera: I'm pretty happy about that. Since Ray's not here, you'll probably try a cookie from this. Yeah, I'm definitely willing.
[00:09:15] Mike Schneider: I was going to say. John's eating two thirds of the cookies already. I was going to say grimy, but it's more like used. These must be good. Oh, not two thirds. Okay. One third of the, or one half of the cookies. Sorry.
[00:09:24] Jacqui Brugliera: That's a chewy, a lot of chewy cookies. Yeah, really tasty. Love the packaging.
[00:09:30] John Craven: Love chewy cookies.
[00:09:32] Jacqui Brugliera: They come in chocolate chip, ginger smack, and choco choco. Just like a all chocolate cookie with chocolate chips.
[00:09:39] Mike Schneider: Low peat protein.
[00:09:41] Jacqui Brugliera: Pretty tasty.
[00:09:41] Mike Schneider: Yeah, not bad. Not bad at all. Cool packaging.
[00:09:45] John Craven: Yeah.
[00:09:45] Mike Schneider: On the back it says mind-blowingly tasty. There's some pretty cool little illustrations on it of how to enjoy. One which includes someone's head exploding.
[00:09:56] Jacqui Brugliera: I know, I saw that. It's a nice little cartoon. They have this little call-out.
[00:10:00] Mike Schneider: You should turn that into an AI video.
[00:10:01] Jacqui Brugliera: There you go. They have a little call-out. It's made by a Michelin star chef. Okay. I guess former Michelin star chef. Are we going to try the chocolate chip or the chocolate chocolate? As you can see, I've already tried all of these in excess.
[00:10:15] John Craven: Yeah, they must be delicious. Yeah, the packaging over here, from all the way over here, I can see nice cookie imagery.
[00:10:22] Mike Schneider: I shared some last week. Don't worry. I didn't eat all these cookies. It says absolutely no boring cookies, and I think they pay that off.
[00:10:29] Jacqui Brugliera: But I think these are only available online right now, so worth checking out. AlsRealGoods.com. How about that? Nice and big on the side of the box. I like that.
[00:10:39] Mike Schneider: All right. Well, thanks for sending those. I've got some beverages here. Shocking. Our friends at KACE, K-A-C-E, have done a little glow up on their packaging and now very large on the front says Fruit-y Tea. And they've got two new flavors, mango calamansi and pineapple, which I've tasted both of these and the pineapple is a little smoky. I like it.
[00:11:02] Jacqui Brugliera: Smoky?
[00:11:03] Mike Schneider: Yeah. You should definitely take those and try those. Okay. Will do. And we've got the new flavor of Crunchy Clean Hydration. This one is their calm variety, pineapple, coconut, sparkling wellness water, supposed to be for stress relief. Silly name, serious hydration. It's crunchy.
[00:11:20] John Craven: I love the name.
[00:11:21] Mike Schneider: I mean, it's not, it's not really literally crunchy. It's not really crunchy. It's, I think that's the vibe. Yeah.
[00:11:26] John Craven: Yeah.
[00:11:27] Mike Schneider: It's really tasty. Just got to clarify that. I'm going to drink this one.
[00:11:31] John Craven: Going for it. Yeah. There's no bits. 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. On behalf of the entire Taste Radio team, thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.
[00:12:25] Jacqui Brugliera: you
