Hello 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 I'm joined by my co-host, John Craven and Melissa Traverse. In this episode, we revisit three interviews from Taste Radio's Miami Meetup featuring Spencer Slain, a founding member of Early Stage Investor Network, the Angel Group, Megan Klein.
The founder and CEO of fast growing non-alcoholic cocktail brand. Little Saints and Conrad Barrett who leads US operations for AB in Bev's at home beer platform. Perfect. Draft. We need a PerfectDraft here in the office. I'm just saying. I know. I was talking to Conrad about that. I. And you know, look, I hate to admit it, but that Stella Trois off the PerfectDraft was pretty tasty.
Why would you hate to admit it? Get it right? Yeah. I don't know. It's not, not really my beer, otherwise, guy, Mr. Bougie over here, it's refreshing. I like Guinness. Is that really more bougie? I also, I know, man. It's just whatever. Well, you just need AB and Bev to buy Diaggio and you're good to go. Yeah, they should get working on that.
But, um, in the meantime, I, I was like, when is this PerfectDraft gonna come to Massachusetts? I mean, I couldn't believe it, but Massachusetts not really high on the list for AB InBev because people actually go out to bars a lot, a lot. I don't know. Yeah. Or we go to dunks, you know, well the day we start to see beer at dunks, I don't know.
That's when, uh, the apocalypse hits. Although we're pretty damn close to that Anywho Expo West is over. Which, uh, I'm happy about. I mean, I loved Expo. It was fun. It's too short. Uh, it felt a little shorter. Did yeah. Yeah. Just gimme a third day back. Not this half day. Yeah. Friday was pretty dead. I was there on in the morning.
I, I didn't stay for it because last year and, uh, no, I'm gonna sound like Ray for a second. Hating on Expo West, but I'm really not. But last year it was like crickets and tumbleweeds and people who still there, a lot of hungover people, which I appreciate that people had fun, but. You appreciate that people got banged up.
It just would've been better if we still had Saturday where, I don't know, being a little banged up on a Saturday morning feels a little more appropriate. I didn't even make it to the main hall. I did the North Hall, Holly. And I, I think I walked through the main hall but didn't really get to stop at all.
Hall A Yes. Yes. Which one's? The arena? I didn't hit that. No. Hall E was downstairs. Yeah. Hall is the, and then Hall A is the main one, right? Yeah. Right, right, right. Didn't get to the arena. Unfortunately. I did get upstairs to all the hot products exhibits, which is like basically brands that are zero to two years in felt like Hall E was more established.
Entrepreneurial brands. Hall A was all the big players, the big corporate giants and the beverage sort of, I don't know, what did they call it? Something like that. Beverage pavilion. Yeah, beverage. The beverage aisle. The beverage aisle. And of course the North Halls brands that are a little bit later stage than zero to two years in, they're about two to five years in and, and, and growing pretty quickly.
It seems like it kind of, I don't know, at this point, it just felt like a mix of everybody, everywhere. But I did hear from some folks that it would better if you did have categories grouped together, like the coffee folks here, the, I don't know, baked goods folks here, et cetera, et cetera. So, but then of course, you don't accidentally run into a product or a category that you may not be looking for.
So this is true. This is true. Great vibes at the show though, yeahs. Definitely a good time. Yeah, good to meet a lot of the new folks in the industry. Bring in awesome and really innovative brands to the market. Please stay in touch. Send us your stuff to the office, send us your stuff, and definitely let us know how things are going apply to join us for an episode of Elevator Talk, which of course is our series that focuses on early stage and disruptive brands in food and beverage.
If you wanna learn more, just email us, ask at Taste Radio. Dot com. If you are in the New York City area, heck, if you're in the tri-state area, we would love to see you next month. If you're the bridge and tunnel crowd. Yeah. You, no, that's so, that's just like, that's like calling people from the 1 28 loop here in Massachusetts if you're from the North Shore.
That's basically what you're saying about these people. I'm, I, I'm, I'm originally from Long Island. I'm making fun of my people. Okay, I can do that. Alright. It's okay. Okay, fine. If you're from, you can leave the strip mall. You're I city. If you're from Metro, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, anywhere in that area, would love to see you on April 16th.
That's a Thursday in Times Square. Now note, I know Times Square can be all chaotic and crazy, but where we're holding the event is pretty damn awesome. It's at the offices of Anin, which is a best in class accounting, tax, audit, and advisory firm. We're expecting a. Big turnout. Of course, we will have all kinds of networking opportunities.
You'll get a chance to hear from some amazing folks with our live podcast interviews, and of course they will be drink food. And if you haven't had an opportunity to meet Melissa Traverse in person, this is an important opportunity. So, although I will say this about Expo, I don't know how many times your name was mentioned, Melissa.
Ah, it seems like everyone knows who you are, which is awesome. I'm in good company and I wanna, I wanna share a hot tip for all those folks who might be new there as well. Make sure you go to non base. Dot com, which is our how to build this platform. So if taste radio is how I'm building this and how I built this non base is how to build this.
So definitely head over there for loss of expert advice with the non base podcast, with our educational series, our partner directory, and of course our Slack community. How about how to not f it up? Yeah. And yeah, exactly. Yeah. Learn from all the people who already effed it up so you don't have to f it up the same way.
Melissa's email address is m traverse@bevnet.com. Definitely reach out. Please do. Alright. Uh, I also wanna say that we are holding, and I've said this before, many more taste radio meetups later this year. Austin in May. Chicago in August, San Diego, and San Francisco in September. In London in October. Learn more about all those meetups and how to register for them at taste radio.com/meetups.
Thank you so much to our outstanding national partners. Vibrant ingredients and belay solutions. I love that. Name. Belay. Belay. That order. I don't think that's how they say it, but, well, it's a na, it's, I think it's a naval term belay. Like when you say belay, that order. I think you're right. Yeah, yeah, sure.
Whatever, bro. If you're interested in sponsoring our New York event or any one of the other six taste radio events happening later this year, email us at ask@tasteradio.com to learn more. So many more made ups? Yeah. There's another one that we are involved with, but we're not hosting it. It's on April 23rd.
John and I will be back in Southern California for naturally San Diego's. Annual naturally rising pitch competition. I'm gonna be hosting the event, which is awesome. It'll be my fourth time. John's gonna be in the crowd heckling. He already said to do that. You stole my line. I be, yeah. Get off the stage. A clown.
Nice blazer dick. Alright. I probably went to that one last year. That happened last year. It's okay. Okay. Yeah. The naturally San Diego naturally rising competition is amazing. That community is just fantastic. They are so supportive. Of early stage brands, everyone is trying to help each other build and scale their businesses, and I feel like that's why you see so many successful brands come out of that area because they have such a fantastic community.
I mean, they also get a lot more sunshine than we do, you know? It doesn't hurt. It doesn't hurt. I mean, San Diego, best weather in the country, if you're generally tanned, physically fit. You're probably gonna be happier and it's gonna make you happier to build a business versus saying, I don't know, Fargo, North Dakota.
If you're in the area and thinking about attending that event, you definitely should. It is just a party every single time, and you get to meet amazing people. I've met a bunch of retail buyers at that event. There are investors who attend, gonna meet your fellow entrepreneurs as well. It just is a really, really fun time.
Melissa, you should make the trip if you can. Yeah, sounds great. Yeah, it's fantastic. Yeah. And of course, the big one, the granddaddy of the mall, Bev Net Live is gonna be back in New York City on June 10th and 11th. We're expecting our biggest NYC event ever. It is, without a doubt, a can't miss show. I love Bev Net Live in New York City.
I love it. There's so many interesting retail opportunities in New York City with DSDs and bodegas and you know, one-off retailers, that kind of thing. And it's so interesting and exciting to see people collaborating and sharing their learnings and what they're doing and how they're doing it. I mean, the density of retailers that sell beverages there is just, I mean, there's nowhere else like it in the us.
Absolutely. And so if you're thinking about attending, not only can you attend, you can. Do store visits, store check. You can literally talk to owners and managers at bodegas. It's a really good opportunity to be in the city, especially at that time of the year when you know you're just before the rush of tourists coming in.
It's a really, really good opportunity. To be in the area. We've already announced our first round of speakers, including Richard Laver, who's the founder and CEO of Fast-growing Energy drink brand Lucky Energy. He's also the founder of the fantastic brand, Kate Farms, which is expanded beyond its core focus on hospital nutrition and into, or should I say, back into protein and meal replacement beverages.
Of course, our favorite folks in the UK. Perhaps some of our favorite folks in the uk, Olivia Ferdy and Daniel Curry were the co-founders of Trip. They'll be speaking at the event as well as Laura Taylor, who's the founder of Mingle Mocktails. She's gonna be on stage with Samantha Fletcher the incredible.
Amazing. I'm, I'm out of ways to praise this woman. She is the senior category merchant, or a senior category merchant at Whole Foods Market. You don't wanna miss that conversation on stage. Get your tickets now, bev net live.com. Tickets are going fast. They are going fast. Well, I mean, definitely faster than last year, which was also our biggest New York event ever.
So. I've heard so many founders talk about how they got their first retail opportunity with, you know, whole Foods. For example, at Bev Net Live, so many other retailers and investors. It really is such a big opportunity. Yeah, so many great stories that I'm sure also our marketing team will bombard everyone's, I hope so.
Email inbox with, we're pretty good at that. Sorry, I mean, I'm not marketing this event well, I guess I am indirectly here, but I mean, I will say, you know, half day. Ice tea. I did a podcast interview with one of the founders last year. And how did he meet his lead investor? He met him at Bev net Live. True story.
I mean, lots of brands that fit in that boat all the way up to the, uh, athletic brewing. Exactly. We love to market that connection. I mean, why wouldn't we? Honestly? I mean, you never know. It's kind of, you know, it's very different than going to an expo west where you're there to like. Try to write orders.
Right. And certainly Bev Net Live and many of our events have a track record of, you know, making these connections that, you know, I suppose to some extent probably didn't have. I'm sure they didn't write the investment deal on the show floor. That would be kind of hasty and weird. Right. Although, you know, enough free alcohol, you know, you never doesn't.
But anyway, doesn't hear. It's interesting to see how these things play out and you know, the connections that are made and yeah, I mean that's always like the best part of the show for sure. Now, Melissa, you recently spoke to a trio of investors, you know, continuing this funding discussion on the non base podcast, which was, I thought, a fantastic episode, and it felt like it sort of gave the perspective of the founder in the investors' voice in a weird way, and this is because.
Yeah, so Kadu, C-A-D-O-O-T-Z. Exclamation point is a cracker brand position for kids that was started by three industry insiders. Kiva Dickinson, the founder and managing partner of Selva Ventures, Rachel Mansfield, who is a food influencer, she has a. Huge reach on social media and with her website and a bunch of other venues.
And then Jordan Carpenter, who is also an investor and has been in this space for a long time. So I saw that they had launched Cadus and I thought, what would three people who know the ins and outs of CPG do differently than someone who, you know, like we were talking about before, come from a totally different industry.
And they really were so forthcoming and generous with the ideas that fueled the strategy that helped them build out this brand and how they're planning on continuing to build it smartly. So they talked about things like why they were using. Certain premium ingredients, like a hundred percent extra virgin olive oil.
Why they cut out other ingredients because they didn't make sense and they were expensive. Kiva was talking about how they set up product costs and pricing and how that affected their cost and their margin structure. So they really did kind of get into almost like a case study of how to build a smart strategic brand.
The thing that was so eye-opening for me is that, and the name of this podcast is Lessons from Investors who decided to build their own CPG brand, which is pretty straightforward, but it's almost like if you're a founder listening. You're getting inside the mind of how would I build this, you know, as an investor, and I'm sure that Kiva and Jordan and Rachel have their own personal take on how to build a brand, but I think that mindset is pretty similar to other early stage investors out there, or at least CPG investors out there.
It's almost like if you listen, you can understand how to speak to other investors via this discussion. And you know, before heading into this interview, part of me was thinking, well, do they just have unlimited capital? And they can, I mean, you know, it's not that hard to build a brand if you can throw an endless amount of money at it, but they don't, that's not actually how they're doing it.
For example, Rachel was talking about the PR strategy and how she was building out these PR boxes and exactly how she was. Shipping them and who she was shipping them to. So I do think that the lessons are completely applicable to brands of all sizes and brands with all resources, including basically none.
And I would, for the record, say, still hard to build a brand sometimes when you're. Throwing infinite money at it. Right. Right. Does not fix everything. Right. Right. It helps, but it doesn't fix everything. I could share some examples, but I won't. Well, you know, it's the old, uh, best way to get a million dollars from a CPG company is start with 10, right?
Or something like that. Yeah. We, I mean, we, we've seen it happen. Some, we, we, we definitely have. We definitely have. My goal with the non base podcast is for anyone running or building a brand to be able to walk away with, you know, at least one or two pieces of actionable information that they can go ahead and apply to their own businesses to help run things more efficiently.
And here, I think really the PR strategy that Rachel is employing and her social media strategy, and then kiva's notes on pricing and margin structure are two really strong pieces of information that will help everybody out there. What's next? What's up this week? So this week I am going to be talking to Sherry Fry of Nielsen IQ to sort of match the all of the trends and products we saw at Expo West with all of the data that she is tracking to at Nielsen iq.
To sort of help us understand what we saw at Expo West and how that's going to predict what we're gonna see for the rest of 2026. Outstanding. Once again, non base.com is the website. So I don't really shop at Target very often. I think a couple episodes back or a few episodes back, I, I did actually go to Target because it seemed like they had brought in a bunch of new brands or at least introduced.
And debuted a lot of new line extensions for existing brands, but it seems like target's pretty bullish on the food and beverage industry. Our dear colleague Lucas Suther covered a story about how Target is expanding their stores into new food forward concepts. They're going to be debuting these new stores across 2026.
They're planning to open 30 new locations. I was really interested by the fact that the new prototype stores, these food forward concepts, are going to have a food and beverage department that is quote 30% larger than the chain average. So I'm hoping that means that we're gonna see a bunch of new brands on their shelves.
Like as in their selection is going to expand more than say they're just gonna carry different types of, you know, fruit or produce or what have you. Certainly, I expect that we're gonna see more fresh products. More commodity goods as well. But if I were an early stage brand or emerging brand, I would be trying to reach out to Target immediately and figure out, well, how much of that new space is gonna be allocated to better for you and innovative brands?
Making sure that those stores also align with the regions that you're looking to launch into, and you know, ideally in your home region, so you can go and check on things and kind of understand how things are working for you. Yeah, and it's good news for better for you brands too. I mean, target has been moving in that direction of adopting.
And carrying Better For You brands over the past two, three years. Last month, target announced that it was removing artificial dyes from its cereal selection and formulated its good in gather brand products to be free of artificial flavors and sweeteners, synthetic colors, and high fructose corn syrup.
You can read all about. Target's strategy with these new concept stores@noosh.com. Good stuff. It is good stuff. Also, earlier this month, uh, our dear colleague, Monica Walrus wrote a story about Mezcal. Mezcal is a brand of protein bars that has a nice crunch. How would you describe the Crunch, Monica?
That's my favorite protein bar and really one of the only ones I buy. It's almost like, and actually this is a trend that I saw a little bit of at. Bo West. It's almost like a rice crispy tree. Exactly. It's a little bit crunchier than that, but it has like a rice crispy texture, and then it has a layer of enrobed, like they do white chocolate or regular chocolate, that kind of thing.
Yeah, so they're plant-based snack bars. They do have that puff crispy texture. As Melissa pointed out, they're unavailable in more than 9,000 retail stores nationwide, including Whole Foods Sprouts. Publix and select Target and Kroger locations as well as other retail chains. Mela closed a $9.5 million series B funding round led by Bluestein Ventures with participation from TER Capital and a few other.
Seemingly respectable venture capital firms. I won't name all of them 'cause there's quite a few Actually, you'll go on for a while. I could go on for a while. But congratulations to Founder and CEO Griffin Lansky. I met Griffin in 2020 when we were hosting our elevator talk series for the first time, or at least in that format for the first time.
And it was when there was no expo and John and Mike had a great idea too. Highlight what all these brands would've been presenting and, and showcasing at Expo West via a virtual program. And we got to meet a bunch of founders that had just gotten into the food and beverage industry, needed some awareness, needed to get their name out there, introduce themselves to.
The community, whether it be a retail buyer, an investor, a distributor, what have you. And so I first met Griffin, I believe it was spring or late spring of 2020, and I was thinking there's all these COVID babies to use that term, COVID. Babies that were. Made their launch at that time. Certainly Mezcal, as we can tell is is doing pretty well.
I was wondering if there were about other brands that have Poppy Poppy's a great one. I think that, I think that's Tops. I'm just gonna say Poppy's probably Tops. Although they had a, they had a little bit of a head start because they were on Shark Tank. No, they were supposed, Han they supposed to launch in Target in March of 2020.
You know, I did an interview with uh, Allison and Steven Ellsworth in 2020 at the time, and I was actually kinda skeptical about this. Repositioning, rebranding. New brand of Poppy. Um, boy, they proved me wrong. You know, fish Wife as I remember it as well. Sure. Was launched during COVID, yeah. BTR Nation, which was known as BTR bars at the time.
There's a lot of brands. Yeah. Yeah. And they, they also launched a Rice Krispy format at the show. Yeah. Those are really good at Expo West 2026. Yeah. Unite Foods, which is a maker or bars. Yeah. Yes. More protein bars. A maker of globally inspired protein bars. I think they, uh, you know, they've done pretty well for themselves since I could go up and down the list.
But if you are an early stage brand or if you were an early stage brand in 2020. A COVID baby as it were. Reach out. 'cause I, I wanna talk to you. I feel like we should do a, uh, where are you now with a lot of the Brands Pandemic special? Yes. Pandemic update in a sense, yes. With some of these brands that, uh, we first met in 2020 and, and where they are now because, um, I think that'd be a fun.
Fun exercise. Yeah. Out of difficult circumstances come some really amazing brands and products. That's a good story. Kinda all you can hope for. Yes. Yes. If you could make it in New York City, you can make it anywhere. If you could make it during COVID, clearly you can make it anywhere. Alright, I can see that.
Uh, there's a stack of papers in front of Melissa here and it's because she is still enamored with so many of the brands and founders that she met at Expo West and here they are. Highlighted in all their glory in papers, in price sheets and in and info sheets here. I don't even know where to start. I just have piles and piles of products and papers.
The, I'll just start with what's right in front of me. And we actually referenced this a little bit in our previous expo show when we recorded right from the show. But this is something that I am really interested in, especially now. So this trend of farmer run brands. So brands that are, you know, farmers and they're kind of tracking their products and the ingredients that make up their product right from the farm.
So I have a, you know, a sheet from folk land here. They make these seed oil free, USDA organic absolutely delicious. Fries and tater tots, they were so tasty. Farmwell, which you talked about at the show, painter Land Sisters of course is part of this one degree Organics has been around for a while, but they're also kind of part of this category and you know, it got me thinking about the link between.
This sort of category and regenerative and being able to trace the ingredients in your food back to where it came from. I don't know. That's certainly on my mind. And knowing that I can trace the ingredients in my food back to the farm is certainly more important to me. And I'm thinking more about organics than I was before.
So that's a really good point. You know, we can hear all these buzzwords and you can see all these certifications up and down the street, but if you trust. That A CPG brand is sourcing their ingredients from their own supply chain, literally from their own farms. I feel like that is a better indication of food quality and ingredient quality than anything that you could see on a certification label.
Yeah, it's certainly, I think, important to a lot of consumers out there, and it certainly doesn't hurt that these products are absolutely delicious. It's also interesting that it's like reverse vertical integration of sorts. Mm-hmm. Of like a lot of times you have brands that just go deeper in their supply chain, and this is like the supply chain building brands, right.
And I'm sure for farmers of any kind who can successfully produce CPG products, I would think they have a pretty nice margin advantage there. And hopefully, hopefully they're making more money than just selling, I don't know, potatoes or whatever. Exactly. Yeah. And supply chain control, especially with tariffs and freight.
Yeah. Yep. Yeah, and it's not just on the. Food side as well. I met a brand, or I was introduced to a brand called Mozy, M-O-O-Z-Y, which is a maker of, as they describe it, premium farm, fresh milk. Uh, it's canned milk in 12 ounce slim cans. Yeah, I saw that. Yeah. They, uh, market a two, a two milk. It has 13 grams of protein.
They have a couple of really interesting varieties, including hor shots of milk that I tried. And the founder is a, I don't know, a cow. What, what the founder's, a cow is a, uh, I don't know what generation of farmer he is, but he's been dairy farming, believe in New England for some time. Yeah. And this is exactly what you guys were talking about.
Really delicious product. And again, one where I feel like I can trust the ingredients, trust the source. 'cause I know I met the farmer. Another example is singing pastures. They do the pastured meat sticks that are also absolutely delicious. They were at the naturally New England Pitch Slam. They want it.
They won the one. Yeah. Yeah, they want it. And um, yeah, just another example of being able to do more with the, you know, the ingredients that you are already farming for sure. Alright, rock time. While Melissa's sorting through her papers here, John has two cans of products in front of him. What is this? This is a new brand called Espo.
They actually have four different flavors, but it's espresso soda that is, I would say loosely marketed as kind of like an energy drink alternative. It's got 120 milligrams of caffeine per 12 ounce slim can only 45 calories. This is one of those, like what's old is new again? Coffee, soda. Super tasty. Kind of, uh, I don't know.
I grew up drinking this stuff called Manhattan Special, which probably had a lot of caffeine and definitely a crap load of sugar. This is like a nice sort of adult modern take on it. Pretty good stuff. 12 ounce slim cans, 45 calories per can. 120 milligrams of caffeine. Yeah, the two varieties are zesty.
Lemon and wild cherry. Yeah, there's a vanilla and I'm forgetting what the fourth one is. But, uh, I know Lemon works pretty well, so always, always tasting citrus and coffee. I know usually a good combo. I felt like that of the flavors, felt like the, uh, original flavor, if you will. So there's a brand at Expo.
I don't know if either of you saw them. A spritz? No. And that was a combination of espresso. I tried the blood orange. I think they were all citrus, I'm not sure. And club soda. Super tasty. Low sugar. Same idea. When is, uh, St. Patrick's Day, the 17th. So another week. Yeah. Anyway, it's, yes, it's Tuesday the 17th.
So our dear friends at Athletic Brewing just launched this. Emerald Cliffs, a non-alcoholic, dry Irish stout. I don't know, a glass to pour this in. I tried it yesterday. It's got a nice little cascade to it, but, oh, glad it's, um, well, you know, you, you pour these things. I know. Of course you do. I'm just saying you pour these things, right?
I'm saying you have to. So this is their Guinness type product? Yes. Which, of course you pour into a glass. Yes. It's really solid. I opened it, I guess I'll have to drink this now, but, um, had one yesterday. It was quite delicious. You said that already. I'm gonna have another one today, Ray. How about right now?
There you go. Right outta the can. Oh my gosh. Good stuff. Good stuff. I was gonna say, bill Sal is rolling around in his grave right now, alive and kicking bill's. Good man. Well, um, yeah, and it's Nitro obviously, but you know, I kind of like this as a, I mean, it's like an obvious move for athletic. To try to do this.
Yeah. And it feels like one of the more, I don't know, substantial kind of new entries from them. Yeah, I mean it's, it's hope it works out. It's really good. A natural evolution. I think five years ago they probably would've had a really hard time introducing that to the market because A and eight beers were not what they are right now in terms of demand and B, it probably took a long time to get that right.
I would imagine. Yeah. But well done. Thank you. Athletic brewing. Thank you. Athletic brewing. Maybe I'll get a can if there's still one more upstairs. There are. Alright. Wow. You've got some really cool products in front of you. Look at that, Melissa. Yeah, these just came outta nowhere. I've sorted the piles.
All right. So one thing I have in front of me here is basic case, B-A-S-I-C-A-S-E. So this isn't a food or a beverage, it is a probiotic, single use mouthwash. I actually met these folks at the startup CPGs, Gelson's Grocery Run. This is something that I thought was really interesting and not something that I see a lot of.
So there's single use mouth washes. You should try one of these. You're, you're a big, um, I'm trying to tell me something here. You're a big oral heli. You should have one of these, but, uh, I thought the use of probiotics and mouthwash. It was interesting. We see probiotics everywhere, but you know, I don't know that I've seen them mouthwash yet.
The idea here is that instead of completely eliminating all the, the bacteria in your mouth, you're pollinating it with good bacteria and crowding out the bad bacteria. So that was something that I thought was really interesting and it does certainly have a nice freshening effect. I also have in front of me, pic Cora's Instant bone Broth, so I have the beef.
Bone broth and chicken bone broth. These are, um, single serves right here, and these were really tasty. The one that I was most interested in though was actually the instant cocoa bone broth. They were sampling it at the grocery run as well, and it tasted really just like hot cocoa and I thought it would be such a nice thing to have like at night maybe instead of dessert, that kind of thing.
And I'm kind of curious to know whether consumers would be more interested in it positioned as a hot cocoa bone broth or as a high protein. Coco, so that certainly remains to be seen. But the brand is Pecora, P-I-K-O-R-A. And um, I also have, you know, on the topic of collagen, I also have power UPS product here.
They initially launched with their cocoa mix and it x. Bo West, they launched, I believe, three new skews. They have mint, which tastes just like a Girl Scout cookie. They have hazelnut and cinnamon, and this is a product that I think is super tasty. You can eat it like the lade. Do you remember lade with the chalky?
Um, oh yeah. You don't remember lade? The name sounds a little, um, controversial. I'm just gonna say that there were so many controversial things in the eighties. You would get this, like, it was almost like a piece of white chalk, and then you would get this packet of almost like powdered jello and you would dip the.
The piece of chalk and the jello and eat it like that. Yes. I didn't know it was called lade. Yeah. Well, you don't get the piece of chalk, which I think is actually a really good decision on the behalf of PowerUp. And by the way, you spell PowerUp, P-W-R-U-P. And by the way, you spell lade. LIK. Dash M dash a ID lick MA.
Okay, let's, so the, the first way I try this is just by dumping it in my mouth, and I've tried it a few other ways too. You can make it in ta cocoa, you can cook with it, but I do really like just eating it as a powder. I, I don't know why, but I love it. And it's high protein, 10 grams of protein, seven grams of sugar.
It has electrolytes. So this is certainly a recovery product or even a pre-workout product. If Mike weren't skiing right now, if he were. Here in the studio, he would be stealing every one of those from you all over that I have to fight for it. Yeah. He loves those folks. Yeah. Big fan of power. We spent a lot of time at our booth.
Yeah. Yeah. They're great.
So once again, my name is Ray Latif, the editor, host and producer of BevNET's Taste Radio podcast. Thank you all so much for coming here to Miami. It is an honor to join all of these amazing folks, these founders and operators who are creating the next generation of food and beverage brands in the United States and beyond.
This is our first taste radio meetup of the year, but we have six more coming out in 2026. Including in New York, Austin, Chicago, San Francisco, San Diego, and London. And if you're interested in attending any of those events or if you'll be in any of those cities, we highly recommend you r svp. You can do so at taste radio.com/meetups.
Also, I wanna put June on your radar. June and New York more specifically. That's when we're hosting Bev Net Live. It's kind of like this event, except it's bigger and packed with even more founders and operators and investors. If you're serious about growing your brand, that is the beverage brand. It's an event you should absolutely be at.
You can learn more at bev net.com/events. I mentioned we have an incredible person on the mics tonight, and we have three of them actually. But Spencer Slaine is our first guest. Spencer is a founding member. Of a network called the Angel Group. And if you tune into Taste Radio and listen to Taste radio on a regular basis, you'll know a little bit about the network because I just spoke with his partner, Adam Riggs, for an episode that we published yesterday.
Uh, it seems like it was very well received. Did you have a chance to listen to that one last night actually, so right in time. Well, last night's good. I'm glad that you, uh, did your homework before we sat down on the mics tonight. You know, I love speaking with Adam and I love the context of the conversation because it included.
Brands that everyone knows and loves and you know, brands that the Angel Group has invested in. But let's back up for a second. You know, what is the Angel group and tell us a bit about its origins and your background within the organization. So it started back in 2019. It was maybe 10, 12 people to start, and it was when Adam Sprigg.
We just had on, he moved from Boulder back home to Ohio. He wanted to stay in touch with his friends and professionals in CPG. And then we actually, uh, Adam and myself, we met on a investor call for Loverboy. And from there we formed a connection. I joined, I started bringing people with experience and liquidity.
And, you know, fast forward five years, we now have almost 300 members, mostly full-time operators or professionals in CPG. So obviously when you form a company, typically at least you're trying to solve a problem. You're trying to fill a void or a gap that has been there and hasn't been filled since. What gap did the Angel Group fill for CPG?
So I think early CPG is messy, right? And. Sometimes when companies are too big for friends and family from a fundraising standpoint, or too small for institutional capital. That's where the Angel group filled kind of a nice gap where we would come in, we didn't need a ton of velocity data or information beyond getting to know the vertical and category as well as the founders.
And then we were able to provide assistance as opposed to just writing a check. So because everyone in the group. Except for maybe me has previous full-time CBG experience or current. They're really experts in whatever they're doing, and if there's an issue in distribution or sales, branding, packaging, there's someone in the group who can help.
And they have helped. You have helped because some of the brands that have exited are some of the most well known brands in modern CPG. Again, Bachan's Ste. Most recently Bachan's. Mm-hmm. How much does Bachan's sell for? 400 million? 400 million. So. Bachan's sold for one point, uh, technically 1.6. 1.95.
There were some tax savings and sold for a billion dollars. Yes. I think your track record kind of speaks for itself, but when you're first meeting these folks, what is it that they need? How do you identify someone that needs help and you can give them that help more than just in the form of money? Okay.
Bachan's was interesting because it was kind of the opposite where we had to audition to be investors, and I had cold called Steven maybe 10 or 15 times until he finally took my call. But luckily it was because of the group that we had allocation because one of the members, mark Gallo, worked for NorCal Beverage Bachan's, even early on, was looking to them as a potential partner.
So in that way, Bachan's showed interest because of the distribution network that we had access to, but with other brands. Especially ones that don't have the backing and expertise of a CAVU, you know, we've helped them in, in various ways, whether it's literally allocation in retail or completely rebranding and changing their entire branding the way CAVU did with, uh, mother to Bachan's.
You know, I asked that question because there's a lot of folks in this audience, and a lot of people are gonna be listening to this on the podcast, who will probably give you a call and say, Spencer, you know, I'd love for you to look at my brand. I'd love for you to invest in my brand. And you need to evaluate your interests and I guess the general potential for this brand to have.
Mm-hmm. A great exit. What do you look for specifically in early stage brands? I think defendable moats number one. Uh, number two, when you say defendable moats, let's, let's get into that for a sec. What does that mean? Well, you wanna, there, there has to be aspects of it that are proprietary or that cannot be replicated easily, but also to have that within a vertical that has a.
Very large addressable potential market. And with that, a scalable gross margin that can be supported. So as they grow, you can see that there's a clear route to profitability. The founder is super important, someone that's self-aware and uh, maybe open to feedback, but also confident and has a clear thesis in what they're doing.
And then I think it's intuitive to everyone here, but I mean, I just like looking at brands that have habitual, ideally daily use cases. But it maybe is tapping into some nostalgia or some kind of space with antiquated or incumbents that are not innovating or thinking forward. They're just kind of sitting back and enjoying what they've enjoyed for the last 10, 15, 20, 30 years.
You know, before we hopped in the mics, you and I were chatting over here about oodles, which is the brand that you're invested in, and the idea of oodles. Seems pretty intuitive, right? I mean, you don't really need to think about what it is. It's macaroni and cheese. I mean, and it's a macaroni and cheese brand that's a little bit better than traditional existing brands out there.
I almost feel like, and we talked about this again, that that's kinda their secret sauce with oodles. Yeah, it's kind of, it's better for you, maybe better bad, uh, it depends how you look at it, but in a lot of ways it's similar to what Annie's did. The co-founder is also involved in oodles, but you know what they did was they approached.
The marketing in a much more vibrant, more creative way. Uh, looking at their skews, they're going after flavor profiles that weren't being previously looked at. And really, the founder, Jen, her personality kind of is represented through the brand. And then fast forward, gal Gado becomes a partner that created a surge of sales.
But there's a difference between the virality of a brand and the loyalty of a brand. So the product has to always come first because if people. You look at like a prime not to cast, uh, any negatives, but you know, people have to try the product and also like the product and continue to get it. And you're gonna see surges and that virality I spoke of.
But you want long-term brand awareness use and, um, you want to have a, a real community that's long term. How much does hype, initial hype that is feed into potential for. A larger community, you know, that tribe that everyone talks about. Does hype help create that? Or is that sort of a fleeting thing? No.
Yeah, hype. Hype can kind of supercharge it and get it going, but it's not what's gonna foster it and support it on a long-term basis. But it's definitely something that can help in the, the early innings. Where does good hype come from? You know, is it from the founder? Is it from a particular brand design or label design?
I mean, what in your experience. Has created the most authentic hype for CPG? I'd say usually the founder, I mean, you look, you look at their passion, their commitment. You know, a lot of times when you're looking at pre-revenue, pre-seed opportunities, it's very likely the product's gonna change. The packaging's gonna be way different, but the founder is what remains that constant source of inspiration, creativity, and motivation, especially when things are tough for the first several years.
Well, I'm glad you said that 'cause we have a founder that's coming up shortly, right? Who, uh, I think represents, uh, all the things that you just mentioned. You know, there's a bunch of samples here on the tables. I'm sure you could critique any one of them. Just in general terms, what do you see as particular red flags when it comes to early stage brands, ones that give you pause about a potential investment?
I think valuations are usually telling. So overinflated valuations like we saw in 21 and 22, those are starting to come back a little bit when I thought the rational discipline would be in place for a little bit longer. So, you know, we're always looking, usually sub 10 million when it's, when it's super early on and other red flags.
I mean, the founders can be the best and worst parts of a scenario. It all comes back to the humility, self-awareness, and willingness to be open to to change. So red flags can come up pretty quickly, but I would say usually it's that also when brands, you know, wanna push maybe too much too soon, they don't have any velocity data.
They've done no kind of proof of concept, and yet they wanna raise $5 million and have all these ambition. It's about going in a slower, more methodical way and instead of trying to rush towards an exit or rush to be something maybe you're meant to be, but not tomorrow. I didn't ask this 'cause I think it's.
We would seem to be intuitive when it comes to angel investing, but how much money are you talking about? You know, each member of the network has an opportunity to invest in a particular brand or concept, but at what numbers are we talking about? So there, there's so many different ways The Angel Group does investing.
There's SPVs, and usually those are lower than industry standards. So instead of a two and 20, it's like a zero and 10. So we do SPVs usually when the checks are much smaller, but I'd say the average check size when we're doing our own individual. Contributions, uh, is like 25,000, but they go as low as 15.
But you know, separately of that, Adam and Chris have also started a fund. So they raised $25 million on that. Supernatural Ventures, supernatural Ventures, so you know, you've got, with the Angel group, you've got a fund side, you've got the membership, which is opt-in. It's you pay a membership fee, but basically you're, you're deciding when and if you wanna invest in any brand that pitches.
And then you've got SPVs as well, where you can leverage a little bit of risk by writing a smaller check, but with a larger vehicle so that we can get on the cap table. The most important question of this conversation, what's the best way to approach you? If you're a founder or an operator and you're looking to raise the money and they want to talk to you, what gets you in?
Understood? Uh, anything? I mean, I've taken calls through Instagram, email. I mean, email usually is the way. But, um, in the same way I called, called Steven a Bachan's. I mean, people just call me up and we go from there. I mean, with some of the recent exits, the inbounds to the angel group have kind of spiked, but mostly it's kind of just word of mouth and referrals from, uh, other members.
What's the difference between annoying and persistent? I don't know. So you, if, if you are persistent, you're probably a little annoying. Nothing takes the place of persistence. That's my motto with anything. Well, that's a good motto to have because to be in this business and to succeed in CPG, you have to be persistent.
You have to be tough, you have to be all the things that everyone's ever talked about, and I'm just delighted that you're able to help some of these brands get to that place where their dreams really do come true. Spencer, thank you so much for joining us tonight. Really, really appreciate it. Thank you.
Thank you, Spencer Splain. If you haven't had a chance to introduce yourself, share your business card with him. Please do, because he's definitely someone you should know. All right, let's bring up our next guest. I mentioned her. Her name is Megan Klein. She's the founder and CEO of Little Saints, Megan Klein.
Round applause. Thank you. I'm so happy to be back here with you. I'm so happy one time in, uh, Newton. I didn't wear my REI crown tonight. I'm sorry. No. So it's Megan and I, REI Mushroom. For those of you who don't know, Megan and I sat down for a conversation at our home office in Boston and, uh, yeah, she was wearing a very unique outfit.
I'll just say that. Um, what is Little Saints? Little Saints is a trailblazing brand of non-alcoholic cocktails and spirits. What makes us unique is that we are zero sugar. Very cocktail forward and, um, powered by functional mushrooms like Lions Mane and Reishi. So I think everyone knows here that non-alcoholic beverages are definitely, or at least non-alcoholic adult beverages are definitely on the rise.
Seems like everyone is interested in this space, but what interested you initially in getting into. Non-alcoholic cocktails, my own drinking habits. Okay. Um, during COVID, I was single and living alone in Detroit, and I am 47 and I am a person that grew up like drinking cocktails, you know, like my entire adult life.
I had a couple cocktails, a couple nights a week my whole life. And, um, during CIDI started doing. By myself and I was like, okay, I don't wanna give up drinking alcohol, but like doing this every night is really making me feel terrible. So it was really to solve my own problem. And before Little Saints, I had started a salad dressing, dip and juice brand.
So I had made things before and um, so I did dry January, 2021 for the first time. I bought everything out there. Lots of great non-alcoholic brands that are still there today, but everything was full of sugar. And nothing had like a really good functional ingredient, like specifically a functional mushroom.
And nothing was like really cocktail forward. Like if like sparkling water is here and alcohol is here, everything kind of was like on the sparkling water side. So I was like, I can actually be additive to this category. So I feel like the brand really lives at the intersection of functionality and refreshment.
Like a lot of brands these days, do, you know, lifestyle is another big important part of the brand. How do you define the path going forward when you do have all those three things happening all at the same time? Again, you're a functional brand, you're a freshman or a sort of a, a social beverage brand, your lifestyle brand.
How do you navigate all three parts of the business as Little Saints itself? I mean, we always lead with cocktail culture because we are not, you know, people are like, why don't you make an energy drink? It's like, no, this is like the very specific use case occasion is for when you would be drinking alcohol.
So at the beach, at the pool, like at nighttime. So we like lead. With cocktail culture and then, you know, for people that like drinking, like we want like our drinks to like do something for us. So we know that our customers, people that are gonna reach for Little Saints, they don't just want like a sugar mocktail or something.
They want something functional in it. So we, that's kind of the hierarchy of our messaging. It's like cocktail first. Functional Second, the majority of Little Saints customers, the vast majority, 90% still drink alcohol, you know? So they're not like being sober, like completely replacing it. So if they're gonna drink, they usually save their alcohol for good alcohol.
And then if they're gonna drink a non-A, like it's gotta be good. Like it's gotta be do something and then it's gotta not add to their sugar. I think what you just described is optionality, right? And so having a brand that can reach a lot of different people at a lot of different use cases and occasions.
Feels like the essence of what you do. You don't necessarily have to be living a sober lifestyle. No, definitely not. You definitely don't have to be living like a crunchy, granola, natural lifestyle. No. You just have to meet people where they are at this point, and I think where most people are is in moderation, right?
People are trying to moderate what they drink, you know, how much sugar they eat, what they eat, consume, in terms of functional ingredients. Again, when you're marketing the brand and you're talking to people on social media or beyond, what's resonating most. I would think it. It's moderation. Yeah, no, exactly.
I love that you brought that up because we have done surveys of our, so we have a very large email list because, sorry. You're all gonna get our Instagram ads after this event. Um, uh, we have like 120,000 people on our email list and we, um, have put out surveys after each of the last two dry January. So after 2025 and after 2026.
And we found really interesting data in 2025 abstinence was kind of the thing, like the biggest group of people responding to the survey had like. Not had alcohol for more than 21 days. So they were like the biggest group had like abstain. And in 2026 it was all about moderation. The biggest group of responders said that they did parts of dry January, but they didn't count.
It was sort of like that feeling of it has to be all or nothing. It just feels like it's really kind of going out of favor with everyone. I mean, just talking to my friends in like the New Year, new Year, and like wellness companies, it's more like people are really going towards moderation and we've always spoken like this.
This, by the way, I'm a little nervous to have you try it because it's a little maybe watery, but we're launching a margarita. On Sunday on National Margarita Day, and this is a good example, all little Saints can, cocktails and spirits are like definitely modeled after alcohol. So it's not like we're not doing like a blueberry elder flower spritz, like this is a margarita.
So you know what the use case is. It definitely feels like something that I could replace an evening margarita with a traditional margarita with, which is awesome. I feel like that's always been one of the biggest. You know, impediments to non-alcoholic adult beverages is that they just don't taste or live up to the expectations that you already have.
But I mean, I think that is the crux of building a modern CPG business, you know, is trying to create something that's better than what currently exists or that has existed in the past. It's difficult, and this business is really, really challenging. You know, let's create some solidarity here. You know, when you started out, I'm sure you faced a lot of different challenges as an entrepreneur, did those challenges get more difficult?
Do you feel like, you know, you had a more difficult time at the outset of launching your brand or with its growth? Are you finding that it's even more of a a, a challenge building, scaling a CPG business? You know, I've almost. Build two businesses with our team. You know, we have our direct to consumer business, and then we have our wholesale business, and so direct to consumer, because we were advertising more than the other brands, it was like.
You know, like a rocket ship, especially around Shark Tank time. Even then we were having a really hard time with Wholesale Little Saints. You know, because we're very alcohol forward, we generally need pre tier alcohol distributors, like in Florida Breakthrough or Southern and I, to Spencer's point of just cold calling and being persistent.
I mean, I stalked breakthrough in Southern for three years before they took us in Florida, and it's really hard to get any volume. Isn't stalking against the law for three years, Megan? Not for three years. Wow. Not like in their driveway stalking, but definitely, you know, maybe like show up an event like I'm gonna get in front of you like, but we ended up finally getting the business.
So now what got them to Yes. What made them say yes. I think a couple things like number one, we were persistent. Like a lot of brands reach out to them. Number two, we had feet on the street already. A lot of brands will go to these big alcohol distributors and be like, yeah, I'm gonna have support, but they don't really believe you.
So we already had feet on the street here. And then number three, I think like our data, you know, the only data we really have is. Sprouts data and we do really well there. And then just them looking at the trends too, like they know that they need to bolster up their non elk portfolio 'cause they're just losing sales to like water.
I'm sure distributors also love it and investors love it. When your velocity numbers are great, how do you, how do you get people to buy your product, not just for trial? How do you get them to buy it, to love it, to talk about the brand with other people? What's been most effective in that way? I mean, I think we hunters here, she does a great job like managing our community.
We're like very community centric. We give out surveys, we do events. We're like constantly responding to people and we have a lot of personality in our marketing. I think that's the really, um, thing that we've done uniquely in nal. Like the emails come from me, car writes emails like we're, we feel to people that they know us because they do.
It's like a real team doing the marketing. It's not a celebrity. It's like not something untouchable. And so that's a lot of the feedback we get on all a lot of the surveys. Like, I really like what you guys are doing. I feel like I can see myself in you. And kind of to what talking about before of like, we're not a sober brand.
We're like constantly like giving cocktail recipes, talking about how everyone else on our team drinks alcohol. But me, it's like they can really. See themselves in us. And so I think that's been helpful. I mean, it's exactly what Spencer was talking about earlier is, you know, the founder is the face, the enthusiasm, the charisma behind some of these early stage brands and the connection, the authentic connection is real.
Did you have a hard time sort of putting yourself out there? No, I love it. It's fun. Well just, you know, as a piece of advice for folks who may, you know, be a little wary, you know, what's, what's your advice in terms of getting out there and being that face of your own brand? I mean, well obviously you have to love it.
And then like, I just gave up caring. Like I don't care if I look good. I don't care if I sound good. It's just like people want authenticity and I, I feel awkward when we try to do like stage things. So I think people really wanna see the build, you know, like they love entrepreneur stories, they love to be able to like see themselves in you.
So just like, get out there, whatever it is. Absolutely. That's great advice. Megan, you're the best. Thank you so much you for taking the time. This fun, fun. Congratulations on everything you've built with it, Saint. Really amazing. Thank you. Thank you, Thomas. Thank you. Thank you. Well done. And if you have a moment whenever the uh, margarita comes out, I highly recommend you get some.
All right. Our last guest of the evening, he's not really a guest, he's kind of a legend. His name is Conrad Barrett. He is the director of Perfect Draft for AB InBev. Round of applause for Conrad. Thank you. Thank you. Should uh, should we get a beer? We should definitely get a beer. And while we're getting a beer, I mean, look at this system.
A perfect draft. What is this? Well, I'll explain it. You. You. Sounds great. Okay. I'm going to attempt to explain this, and this is really important because if the consumer can't explain what you're doing to somebody else in 10 seconds, you might have a little bit of a problem because word of mouth marketing so critical.
So if I'm gonna say, oh, okay, well this looks like a device or machine where I can get bar quality draft. In a single pore. Cheers. Cheers. Using a countertop device at home, is that, that's essentially what it is. Yeah, exactly. So perfect draft is bar quality, draft beer experiences at home. So it sits on your countertop, has a, uh, six liter keg inside of it.
A machine can cool it down to, uh, 32 degrees or your preferred temperature. You know, we often recommend Stella at 37, but yeah, it's, it should be simple, easy, easy to understand. No friction, no fuss. If you think about a kegerator, you have beer lines, CO2. None of that exists with perfect draft. We tried to take all of the friction out of it when we were designing it.
I'm gonna ask a controversial question because people think that beverage alcohol is having a problem, and it is in some ways, you know, a lot of people are drinking less, but I think sometimes opportunity is greatest in categories that seem to be on a decline or categories where innovation hasn't necessarily taken place.
When I think about a perfect draft, I think okay, wow. This is the kind of innovation that you need to consider when you are facing what is potentially decline in at-home consumption of beer. How do you evaluate the opportunity when again, all signs are pointing to, you know, a rocky road, at least in the short term for beverage, alcohol and beer in particular?
Yeah. I think number one is unlocking the best experience. So for us it's all about premiumization and it's all about having that moment at home with family and friends and really bringing the emotion back into drinking. Our core thesis is all around in-home with family and friends, experiencing draft beer.
You know, I lived in Europe for four years and the draft culture there is incredible. I think we have a lot of work to do on draft culture here. I'm so, thank you all for being here as well. Casa La Ruby is a part of our family, but that's like the biggest thing for us is like, how do we bring that emotion and that experience back to beer and, and bring it home?
I love that because you want someone to feel something about your brand. It can't just be about one thing or the other. It can't just be about taste or ingredients or, or label design. It has to be that whole package, and it's difficult though. Yeah, it's difficult to get people to care. It's, it's very hard.
It's difficult to get people to care. Yeah. Hardware, uh, hard is in the name, it is very, very hard. But the good thing that you get out of hardware is the touch and feel the repetitiveness, and it becomes a part of your home. When, when we talk to our consumers, and that's one thing that we do, you know, every single day we're talking to our consumers.
When we were starting up, we were delivering the machine, we were installing the machine for consumers. We were learning where they were putting it in their home. And we still talk to those consumers today, and they talk about it as if it's an extension of their house. It's an extension of, quite frankly, their family.
You know, it's the reason why people come to their house versus them going somewhere else. So it all starts, however, with premium, it all starts with quality. You can't come to market with something that is low quality, that is subpar, that isn't replicating the experience that you guys talk about with perfect draft bar quality.
Draft of beer at home. Yeah. Before you launched this brand, what kind of work did you put in to make sure you were gonna deliver that experience, deliver what you're marketing and talking about? Well, we, we had it a little bit easy because we've been building this business in Europe for 14 years, and so I spent four years building that business.
We took it, you know, 10 x, we're in over 500,000 households in Europe now, so it's an incredible business. So we learned the mistakes early and we were able to rectify that before we came to the us. What were some of those mistakes that you made? Oh, it's everything from not delivering that core value proposition of when the beer's delivered to them, how the machine pours the beer.
So this is a brand new machine that we developed, uh, about four years ago. But previous to that, one of the key learnings is consumers wanted to change the temperature of their beer. So we built it, you know, we made sure that you could set the machine now down to 32 degrees, or you could go up to 42 degrees, depending on the, the different style you're drinking.
So another thing is that. We know that consumers wanted to interact with the machine when they maybe weren't home. So we have an iOS app so they can set the temperature check on their beer, order beer, but the biggest thing is, is just that end experience. So how the really, how the, the machine pours the beer.
That was the thing that we spent the most time on, and that's what was really redeveloped with this machine, was that pouring experience. I think again, you know, optionality is a really big part of building a successful CPG brand. You want to give people. A reason to consume your product, but at different day parts and different use occasions, and so on and so forth.
So you're not necessarily saying, okay, well you can only use this, or you can only drink craft beer at home. Right? Obviously you're gonna go to the bar, of course you're gonna drink beer out of a can or pour it into a glass. But giving people an option seems to be one of the keys to a perfect dress success.
But broadly speaking, how do you identify, you know, the next value proposition for people who are, you know, just getting into. Or just learning about this machine, you know, is there another value that you can unlock for people? 'cause, because again, I mean, you know, you don't necessarily need to have this at home, but it's an amazing thing to have at home.
Yeah. It's a basic answer, but it really, it's the core to everything. Talk to your consumers, let them tell you exactly what they want and you build it. That's the main thing. The main thesis around our business is. Talking to consumers, learning as much as possible and trying to deliver on exactly what they want.
When we see something that hits, we double down on it, and that's one of the values about being a part of Anheuser-Busch is we operate as a startup within Anheuser-Busch, but we have the scale to double down when things go right. It's so interesting, right? You're building a startup within a very large beverage company, but you know, with all the resources that you might have.
I would wonder sometimes if you kind of get tripped up on your own two feet sometimes, because you have certain rules and regulations that you have to follow no matter what. But you know, operating as a startup, what do you see as some of the things that are most opportunistic? How do you identify ways that you can be nimble even within a big organization?
Well, I have a little bit of the luxury of being at AB for 10 years now, and so I know the system very well and I know where I can operate freely and where I need to engage with the the business. And I think that knowledge has really helped us grow because for the first year we were super siloed. We were operating on an island, very small, very contained, but we were just proving that we had product market fit.
And then once we were able to prove that, then we started really engaging with the business and saying, you know, working with our Florida team, working with our whole region to understand, okay, how do we really grow this? So number one was you need to act as a startup no matter where you are. You need to be fast, you need to have fast feedback loop.
Again, I'm gonna repeat myself. You need to talk to every consumer you can. And then the value really of unlocking at AB is, you know, when I need a marketing budget and I have the data, I have the money. You know what I'm saying? I, I have to prove the data. AB is is very, very meticulous. And so they want the numbers, they want the data.
We are extremely smart with how we operate, but once you have the data, they will unlock the cache. One term that I think everyone's heard of and is overly used this these days is ai. Yeah. And you know, sometimes you don't need a humongous marketing budget if you use AI effectively. Yeah. How do you use AI to build your business or to support the growth of your business?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, we, every single facet of our business, it touches AI now. So we are a very small team within a very large company, but it's, it is literally myself and Martine who's over there behind us. And the two of us operate this business with our AB partners, but we use AI again in every facet. So from a direct to consumer experience, we have all of our personalization email recommendations, all of the consumer touchpoints are going through an AI funnel to understand what does the consumer want, but more importantly, like the really where we're getting the gains, because that's kind of table stakes now, is the, the consumer side is on the operations.
And so all of our marketing, so when we think about. What are we putting in front of consumers from a marketing video? All of that is getting analyzed by ai. It's telling us where the hooks are, where consumers are engaging, where consumers are dropping off. So every video is run through AI and it's then we're looking, crossing it with our Facebook data to say, okay, where were people dropping?
Where should we bring that hook? Should we move that hook? Should we bring it up? Should we change the hook? I always joke that we hired our first AI employee, and so, uh, we have a, a Draper. Draper is our, uh, marketing executive and he basically runs a lot of our marketing operations, works with our contractors, and kind of operates everything that allows me and Martine to be deeper in the business.
And again, talking to our consumers, being where it matters most. Learning and trying to again, show the value to our greater organization AB as well. You know, I am. I'm really happy that we had this conversation for two reasons. One, clearly you are very knowledgeable, 10 years of experience in a big corporation, yet you talk like an entrepreneur, which is amazing.
So if you have an opportunity to meet Conrad, I think you should pick his brain because he definitely knows what he's talking about. And two, I get to try. Some of the best draft beer I've had in a long time. Appreciate that. This is a really amazing machine. If you haven't had a chance to try a beer from the perfect dry system, please do, right?
You can do so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We got, Martin will be sharing some. You guys can pour your own. We're we're available in Florida, so you can find us@perfectdraft.com. If you want a machine, come talk to us. If you wanna try the beer, come talk to us. It is the best beer experience you can have at home.
Outstanding round applause for Conrad Barrett. Thank you so much. All right. We've wrapped up the interview part of our event tonight. Thank you all so much for coming, and once again, thanks to our incredible sponsors. Vibrant Ingredients, matriarch Wealth Management atomos Strategic Marketing.
Definitely talk to those folks back there. Of course, Casa la Rubia and Belay Solutions. We'll be in New York City in mid-April. Stay tuned Taste radio.com/meetups. Once again, thank you all so much for coming tonight. Really appreciate it.
