[00:00:00] SPEAKER_??: you
[00:00:08] Pressed Juicery: This episode of Taste Radio is presented by BevNET Events.
[00:00:11] Los Angeles: Join us this November 29th and 30th for Nosh Live, a natural food industry conference gathering A-list speakers from top brands, investors, retailers, and more to navigate the food industry, discover what's next, and find your vital partnership.
[00:00:26] Pressed Juicery: Beverage Pros, you know we have you covered. BevNET Live takes place on December 3rd and 4th to talk about innovation, trends, and challenges in the beverage space while encouraging partnership through extraordinary networking opportunities. The events are at the Lowe's Santa Monica Beach Hotel for the 10th time. To learn more, visit www.bevnetlive.com and noshlive.com. We hope to see you there.
[00:00:48] Los Angeles: And now, Taste Radio.
[00:01:01] Ray Latif: Hey everyone, I'm BevNET Managing Editor Ray Latif and you're listening to the top podcast for the food and beverage industry, Taste Radio. This is episode 135 of the podcast, which features an interview with Hayden Slater, the co-founder and CEO of Pressed Juicery, who shares his journey from upstart entrepreneur to the leader of one of the largest juice chains in the US. Just a reminder to our listeners, 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 would rate us on iTunes. To be honest, I was a little worried that Hayden Slater would be too tired for an interview. He'd flown to New York on a cross-country flight from Los Angeles, and I'd heard that he was a little thrown off by the time difference. More on that later. When we sat down, I assumed that his serene demeanor was a sign that he was, indeed, a bit fatigued. Yet as we spoke, I came to realize that Hayden's calmness was very much a part of his personality and one of the keys to his leadership of Prestuchery. He's been at the helm of the company since it launched in 2010 and has overseen growth from a tiny operation in the broom closet of a yoga studio to one of the country's biggest juice chains with 75 locations and a projected revenue of $75 million for 2019. Throughout its development, Hayden has led Prest with the approach that everything happens the way it should, a perspective that has aligned its growth with his comportment. That's not to say there wasn't a lot of blood, sweat, and tears spilled along the way. In fact, Prest almost never made it out of that broom closet. In our interview, hear from Hayden about the company's origins and how struggles helped mold and differentiate it from other Pressed Juicery makers, and why building a retail experience around the brand has been so critical to its growth. He also explained why the little details matter so much, what Starbucks taught him about pricing, and why white space is as much about location as innovation. All right, it's Ray. I am in New York City, and in front of me is Hayden Slater, the co-founder and CEO of Pressed Juicery. Hayden, thank you so much for being with me.
[00:03:07] Hayden Slater: Of course, super excited to be sitting here and chatting with you. I'm just excited that you're awake. You came in late last night. I did, I did. I think I'm awake. You think you're awake. You were on a red-eye. I took the red-eye and then we were meant to hook up, I guess at 11.30, but I didn't put it together and got here at 8.30, you know, that time difference.
[00:03:28] Ray Latif: Because you're on West Coast time.
[00:03:28] Hayden Slater: Exactly.
[00:03:29] Ray Latif: Yeah.
[00:03:30] Hayden Slater: Super fun. Super fun. Feeling great. Good, good. You live in LA, right? I kind of live out of a suitcase these days, but technically my address is LA. And you're familiar with New York as well. I am. I grew up in L.A. and then I moved to New York for college and I hung out for I think about seven years before I moved back to L.A. What were you doing in New York after college? I was trying to get a job, but you know, I moved slowly. What kind of job were you trying to get? You know, being from LA, I kind of grew up as like an industry kid. You know, my family was- Entertainment industry, I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah, sorry. My family wasn't in the entertainment industry, but I kind of grew up interning for all my friends' parents. So I was always working on TV shows or movies. And I went to NYU for theater and film. And then I wanted to get a job either writing or directing, you know, something in that world. But I kind of started becoming more and more attracted to television, which clearly brought me back to L.A. My first job out of college was a HBO show called Tell Me You Love Me. I'm not familiar with that show. It was super interesting. It's about three relationships. I don't know if we want to go into the whole. You can, sure. I'd love to hear about it. So it's about three relationships. It was actually a really fascinating show. It came out too early. Had it come out now, I think it would have been received so much better. What year was this? 2007-ish. No, probably 2008. Somewhere around there. But it followed three couples and it was all about sex. So there was a couple in their early 30s who were just getting married and had never been monogamous. A couple in their early 40s who could not get pregnant, and a couple in their probably early 50s who had two kids and hadn't had sex in over two and a half years. So it kind of followed all of them, super raw, super real. It was pretty intense, but it was a great show to work on.
[00:05:36] Ray Latif: I'll have to go back into the HBO archives and check that out.
[00:05:41] Hayden Slater: I remember my mom being like, I'm so excited to watch it with you. And I was like, I don't know if this is the show we want to watch together. She watched the pilot and she was like, I'm so happy we didn't watch that together.
[00:05:53] Ray Latif: It sounds like the appropriate response from a mom watching a show about sex. Correct. There was a show on HBO that I loved called How to Make it in America. And I think that was about a year or two after you left. My brother was actually a producer on that show. Oh yeah? Yeah. Love that show. Yeah. I was so disappointed when they canceled it.
[00:06:09] Hayden Slater: I know, right? Yeah. HBO, they put out some great ones. It's like, but they also kind of know when to turn them off. You know, it's like they get to the height and then they really, you know, they leave on a high.
[00:06:20] Ray Latif: Well, that show How to Make it in America was really interesting to me too, because it was about entrepreneurship. You know, the two main protagonists in the show were starting a fashion company, Crisp. And yes, the hustle, you saw the hustle and the drive and all the success and the failure that comes with entrepreneurship. And you've seen plenty of that as well. Correct. As an entrepreneur yourself. Yes. The story of Pressed Juicery started What was the inspiration behind the launch of the company?
[00:06:50] Hayden Slater: Yeah, for sure. I mentioned I was born and raised in LA and I kind of feel like I was somewhat educated in nutrition, but never really practiced it, you know, and was pretty unhealthy for most of my life. I got to New York and I think it was my sophomore year where I had a required yoga class. And I don't know many college kids that want an 8am yoga class. I've never even heard of a required yoga class. It was Tisch School of the Arts.
[00:07:16] Ray Latif: Oh, I see, okay.
[00:07:18] Hayden Slater: But in walks this like beautiful blonde with kind of that energy that was just like, you felt it the second she walked in the room. And in her hand was a thermos of green juice. And over the course of the semester, she totally opened my eyes to just words that I had always heard of, but never really practiced. So yoga, chanting, meditation, green juice. And I know she was having an impact on me when like a couple months in, I opted not to go out with my friends on a Friday night and hit up a chanting class. But long story short, she went to Tisch and at a very young age was diagnosed with a really rare form of cancer. And I believe she was given about six months to a year max. And she kind of had this epiphany of, If I can't control what's going on inside, I'll take control of what I have control of. And her first step was juice. She just started juicing. From there was macrobiotic food and yoga. And as a performer, she would put on a song and dance every morning. It's been 16 years. She's a New York Times bestseller. She has been on Oprah a handful of times. Her name is Kris Carr, and she kind of created this, you know, crazy sexy cancer is really her brand. And she, you know, for me, not only defined the word survivor, but the impact of kind of watching her carry a thermos of green juice every day really resonated deeply with me. And it was about that time, living here in New York, where I started incorporating juice. And I was really blown away by the impact that such a small addition to your routine had. You know, I don't want to say it was what changed everything, but it was definitely that catalyst. I wanted to work out, I wanted to eat clean. And it really was the beginning of kind of this transition into wanting to just, you know, feel better. So cut to, I finished school, I moved back to LA. As we were chatting, my first gig was HBO. And very quickly, I kind of fell back into old habits, you know, production hours and craft services. You know, I had this kind of epiphany, call it, where I never went abroad when I was at NYU, which was a huge regret of mine. So when the show I was working on wrapped, I bought a one-way ticket to Southeast Asia. And I kind of spent about almost eight months. Why Southeast Asia? I don't know, to be honest. Yeah, there was just something about it that I liked the idea of, you know. Why a one-way ticket? Because I didn't know when I wanted to come back, if I wanted to come back. It was kind of that like eat, love, pray moment, you know, where I was trying to figure out what it was. Not that I was over entertainment. but the excitement of what I had anticipated it to be wasn't what it turned out. HBO is incredible, but I found that as a creative, there's kind of this back and forth with the corporate side, and it got me less excited than when I kind of first jumped into it. So I started in Thailand, and kind of inspired by Chris, I attempted my first juice cleanse. And I went five days, and after five days I felt so good that I just kept going. And I made it to 30 days, which is probably a bit excessive, and I don't know if I'd recommend it to everyone. But it was definitely at the end of it that aha moment of my clarity, my energy, like this is what you're supposed to feel like. And when I finished up my travels, I came back to L.A. and I really wanted to kind of take this newfound knowledge and pursue it professionally.
[00:10:56] Ray Latif: There were other companies out there in the US at the time selling juice cleanses.
[00:11:01] Hayden Slater: Nope. We were the first.
[00:11:02] Ray Latif: You were the first. What made you think you would be more successful or what was your approach? What was your point of differentiation from those other juice companies? Totally. Great question.
[00:11:14] Hayden Slater: Look, we didn't invent juice. You know, juice has been around a long time. Not that I know of. What we did was we just took an approach of what do we as consumers want. So blueprint cleanse was really big at the time. And I think they did this incredible job of bringing awareness to the masses around cleansing. The one kind of, I don't want to say issue, but the one thing that didn't resonate so strongly with me was this kind of idea of, I believe their tagline was like, we think you drink. And I love the simplicity of it, but as a consumer dropping, you know, I think it was a couple hundred dollars, I wanted to be a part of the thinking process. You know, I feel like every person is in a different place on their journey. And so there's not just one for all. You really kind of, you know, each person has to find where they are and what works for them.
[00:12:06] Ray Latif: So what you're talking about is it was $200 for their cleansing program. And what you suggested is that each individual can have their own sort of program?
[00:12:15] Hayden Slater: It was a yes, it was more about, but not even necessarily a program. You know, people always say, what cleanse should I do? And cleansing is not for everyone. You know, drink a juice, drink a juice a day, a week, a month, whatever it is, and kind of listen to your body. If you feel, you know, you're making progress, keep going. For me, that was kind of what really was a big part of creating PREST was this idea of Kind of like a kid in a candy shop where there's something for everyone, regardless of where you are on your journey, you could find something. Press is a good name.
[00:12:48] Ray Latif: Thank you. I'm surprised it wasn't taken. When you first launched the company, did you just buy the trademark?
[00:12:56] Hayden Slater: So we came up with it. I don't even know if juicery was a real word.
[00:13:00] Ray Latif: Okay.
[00:13:01] Hayden Slater: You know, we kind of, we looked at bakery and all these and we said, Oh, let's just create our version of that and juice and call it a juicery. The early days was all about creating kind of transparency. You know, you mentioned what's different, you know, at the time when people heard juice, you really thought Jamba. And You know, Jamba, I don't want to say they necessarily mask the ingredients of their products, but there's a lot of color, a lot of fanciful names. We wanted to take the complete opposite approach. You know, let the product and ingredients tell the story. You know, minimal packaging, no color, black and white, so that what you see is really what you're getting. That was really important to us.
[00:13:43] Ray Latif: Now, as the cold Pressed Juicery category began to evolve, you saw some brands coming out from the internet and out from the juice shops and into Whole Foods and into Target and into mainstream retailers. You took your time. Are you in any retailers at this point? I should ask.
[00:14:07] Hayden Slater: We actually just launched about three months ago. Okay. And we're in about probably about 1,500, 2,000 doors now. Wow.
[00:14:14] Ray Latif: Okay. Yeah.
[00:14:15] Hayden Slater: It's moved pretty quick.
[00:14:16] Ray Latif: So why has it taken this long to start a wholesale line?
[00:14:19] Hayden Slater: Yeah, it was really intentional. You know, we really thought hard. I believe it was our first two weeks of being open, we were approached by Whole Foods. And it was before they broke off into regions. And we had talked with someone approached us about carrying pressed in all of the Whole Foods stores. Two weeks after you launched? Two weeks after we opened the company started the company.
[00:14:39] Ray Latif: Okay.
[00:14:40] Hayden Slater: And I went home like freaking out. This is so exciting. We need to raise capital, we're gonna be in all the Whole Foods and all of a sudden I kind of had this, you know, it hit me that it's not really who we are. And me and my partner started this business because we were so personally affected in such a positive way by this product and we wanted to share our story. And there's something about retail where it's you have the ability to interact with people that is so magical that we felt it was crucial to incorporate that. You know, I had mentioned my journey with health and wellness and my struggles and how this was the catalyst. And my business partner, Carly, had unfortunately just lost her mom to cancer. And by no means was she making any claims that she's going to heal or remedy, but there was this idea that four or five pounds of produce isn't doing anything bad for you. And Hedy, our third co-founder, she had a young, she has a child, but he was four at the time. And the idea of masking nutrients in like a cool green apple juice was exciting. So we didn't realize, but at the time we really represented a lot, you know, just by the three of us. And we really wanted our story to be shared. I don't want to say always, but often I think brands on a grocery aisle can feel a bit soulless or storyless. And if you have three seconds to kind of capture the consumer's eye, how do you do that in a way that really works? And we wanted to take the route of let's build a brand, let's build a relationship. with this idea that wholesale is always there. You know, we can kind of enter at any time. And so that really was the reason we didn't want to jump into it. We really wanted to build the brand and the story authentically. Not that wholesale or CPG is not authentic, but the retail path was more authentic to us as founders.
[00:16:33] Ray Latif: We'll be right back with Hayden Slater after this short break.
[00:16:37] Public Health: Nosh Live is a two-day business and networking event for the natural foods industry held this winter in Santa Monica on November 29th and 30th. Learn more at noshlive.com.
[00:16:50] Ray Latif: You launched the company out of a broom closet is what I read. We did. And you have about 70 stores now across the US. Yes. One of the things that really stands out about press usury when you walk into the store, it feels like everything has a purpose. The store is really well laid out, it has an intentionality to it that is so clear. And I spoke with James McLaughlin, who's the CEO of Intelligentsia Coffee, a few episodes ago on the podcast. And he talked about that as being critically important. If you're a super premium brand, everything you do has to be super premium. What was your approach or what is your approach to laying out your stores and establishing your brand on everything that you do?
[00:17:37] Hayden Slater: Yeah, well, first off, thank you for that. I love that question. And I'm so appreciative of when people notice because I mentioned earlier I'm a creative, but creating Pressed Juicery and like all of it, you know, not just the product, but who we are and the stores was so important to me personally. You know, when we started, we kind of took a 22 square foot broom closet And we threw up some reclaimed wood and called it a day. And our second location, we took a food truck and essentially parked it in Malibu, again, wrapped in reclaimed wood. I hope you had a lot of refrigeration going on in that food truck. We did. That food truck was awesome. It was scary to drive, but it was awesome. But I remember having this epiphany really early on of, wait, what are we doing? Because Starbucks is using reclaimed wood and anthropology, and how do we create something that really feels different? And early, early, early on, me and my partners are personally extremely passionate about for all and making sure that, I think the hardest part of living in New York when I was incorporating or introduced to Pressed Juicery was the cost. And I remember as a college kid, This is like an investment in your health, you know, but spending 12 bucks, it kind of negated that feel good feeling. And we really wanted to figure out how we overcome that. How do you make this an everyday purchase? So going back to the stores, because I know I can, you know, ramble a lot.
[00:19:09] Ray Latif: No, it's great. It's great to hear about all this. And I think that there's, I can see how excited you are talking about this. And that's, I mean, that's really cool for an entrepreneur to still like after all these years, like really get into it and really be happy about what you're doing, you know, and be excited about every single day. For sure.
[00:19:24] Hayden Slater: Yeah. Yeah. Trust me, I feel, I feel more than anything. Yeah, I get a little stressed at times, but I definitely feel super grateful, you know, to just be doing something that I love that's growing and evolving and giving back in a way, you know, keep filling communities with great products and high nutrition. But again, kind of going back to the stores, you know, when I had that epiphany of like, we got to create something that's different, it came to me so clear. And it was kind of two things. One, we're California at our core, and I want to make sure we incorporate an element of that into our aesthetic. And California is so crucial because of produce. You know, we really wanted kind of that you know, proudly made in sunny California to always be one of the, just that underlying toner feeling. But I always had this obsession of kind of merging the fields. You know, how do I take Food & Bev and incorporate it with kind of a retail, you know, fashion experience and incorporate music and all these different elements. And I remember when we were figuring out the store, You know, there's a brand, a retail brand in L.A. called James Purse, and I think they do such a beautiful job of capturing California. It's clean, it's sophisticated, it's beautiful, but it also is welcoming. And, you know, I really wanted to take those elements and incorporate it. And it was crucial that we only used natural colors because, again, I really wanted the product to tell the story. So it was like this idea of everything will be, you know, earth tones and matte whites, and then you get this pop-up fridge, which is who we are, and, you know, the second you walk in. But designing the store, I mean, it was one of the most rewarding and exciting parts of this journey. Growing up in LA, I used to really obsess about, you know, I'm fortunate I have some friends that kind of became influential at a really young age. And I used to obsess over what are they doing that's resonating with people. And on the reverse, when people can go wherever they want, what makes them go to the places that they go to? I kept coming back to it's always about the details. You know, the first probably dozen stores we built, I was adamant that all of our doors be custom made, and they had to be a certain weight, because the door to a store is your first touch point. And the weight of the door indicates so much. And I used to remember saying, you know, when you push a custom heavy glass door, it just creates this immediate high end experience. And I really wanted to focus on those details, knowing that my ultimate goal was to get our price accessible. So I really wanted the experience and store to be as beautiful and high-end as possible, knowing that we wanted to get to this mass price point. Or that was always our, you know, hope and goal. Do you feel like you're there right now? I mean, absolutely. I mean, I used to, I'm obsessed with Starbucks. You know, I'm like a student of Starbucks. I got 70 stores and getting them consistent is tough. So how they do it with what they do is just mind blowing. But I have to say, you know, one of my obsessions was Starbucks has essentially trained not just the country, but the world that $5 is an appropriate price to pay for beverage. And my mindset was always if I could replace beans with four to five pounds of produce, just think about the white space and the amount of hands that we could get to and what a difference and impact that that could make on people's lives.
[00:23:00] Ray Latif: Juice has run into some issues because of the sugar count. Sugar is the great Satan these days and anything that has sugar in it is part of that hell, I guess. So, you know, how have you been able to overcome that? I mean, you're one of the... few Pressed Juicery companies that doesn't seem to be as affected by the sugar, the demonization of sugar. I mean, you're still growing, you're still expanding, whereas other Pressed Juicery brands definitely seem to have been affected very negatively.
[00:23:30] Hayden Slater: Yeah, I think it goes back to kid in a candy shop mentality. You know, how do we create something for everyone? So for those that really are conscious of sugar, and really don't want, we have a whole plethora of options for them. For others, you know, I have my own beliefs. I think everything in moderation. I think everything is about balance. I think if you're going to consume, you know, you're always better off with natural than processed or, you know, added sugars. But I think it all depends on where you are and how you incorporate what it is you're looking for. You know, there's a lot of people who, you know, look, our almond milk is probably our highest caloric, heaviest sugar with dates product. And, you know, you could look at it as we shouldn't be consuming sugar. Or you also could look at it as there's a lot of people who are eating ice cream and having milkshakes. And when you kind of replace that with a product like this, I mean, it's almost like an immediate upgrade. I mean, what you're doing is so instant that it's like you can't, you know, it's just a better for you option.
[00:24:31] Ray Latif: You just have to convince the consumer to stop eating ice cream and start drinking juice?
[00:24:36] Hayden Slater: Or start with freeze. You know, that's kind of why we launched this soft serve. But I don't think force, I think educate. You know, people always say, you know, how do you get? I think it really comes down to education. And education is no longer do this because it's good for you, because people don't want to be told. It's trial. You know, show people that healthy options can taste great. And make them realistic. Make them accessible. Make them affordable.
[00:25:00] Ray Latif: Making Pressed Juicery more accessible to consumers is, you know, you can do it by price. Location is another part of it as well. You've taken a very patient approach, a very calculated approach to where these stores live. Tell us a little bit about that. Tell me, you know, how do you consider cities for new locations of Pressed Juicery?
[00:25:19] Hayden Slater: Yeah. You know, I think early on there wasn't much thought. You know, we started in L.A. because we're born and raised and we were living there. And so that's where we launched. And, you know, naturally we would kind of expand on the West Coast because it was, you know, it's how the company evolved. I think after that, it kind of got to a point of we really want to be the first brand to be bi-coastal and then we want to move towards each other. you know, kind of get west to meet east in the middle. And that was kind of always what fueled our thinking, or that was always like, you know, let's kind of conquer those, and then we'll kind of keep growing. We wanted to get to about 60 stores and pause, because we've made a really big investment into our direct-to-consumer, our e-com platform. And we really wanted to pause at 60, focus on the e-com, and then once it's launched, allow that to influence our real estate strategy. We made it to above 70, and we never really paused. But our e-comm is launched, and it was kind of meant for two things. One, to align our online experience with our in-store experience, so it was kind of one feel to the consumer and connect that. And two, direct to consumer. You know, I am a huge believer that in 2018, you have to get in front of your customer, however, wherever, you know, make it as readily available as you possibly can. Omnichannel. Correct. And we truly are Omni. You know, we focus on retail. We're expanding retail. We just entered, as I mentioned, wholesale. And we're growing that pretty quickly. And at the same time, we've launched our membership, which is our direct-to-consumer. And how do we get into someone's hands within an hour at a price point that is still accessible? So that's been our approach, and that's kind of what's influenced why and how we've made the decisions we've made.
[00:27:10] Ray Latif: It sounds all very, very ambitious. And I want to go back into a time when this might not have ever been possible because of three letters, the FDA, which gave you some grief back in the day. Just a little bit. Just a little bit. Please tell our listeners. Right. what problems you ran into with the FDA early on and how you solved them because it seems so serious that you might have to shut down the company before it even got off the ground.
[00:27:38] Hayden Slater: Absolutely. And it was so serious and at the time it was absolutely horrific as we didn't really know what to do or how to do. But in hindsight, probably one of the best things that's ever happened to us. So I think we were about four months old. We were producing juice out of a cupcake shop in L.A., and they had, you know, that A letter on their front door. And, you know, being a new business owner, I assumed that, oh, they have a permit, so that works. So when the health department visited the cupcake shop three months in, I was like, oh, this is awesome. I can ask them some questions. And immediately they saw that a juice company was being operated in the back. You engaged the FDA? Well, this is actually the health department.
[00:28:20] Ray Latif: Oh, the health department. Okay.
[00:28:21] Hayden Slater: And they shut us down. Okay. Immediately. And we panicked and, you know, we had a, we actually had a law firm in LA who recommended that we just not reopen. Their mindset was, you know, getting shut down by the health department in just a couple months of the company being open, we don't see how you recover from that. But we weren't, I wasn't willing to take that as an answer. And we kept going. I'm so happy we did because, A, when we reopened, it was one of our strongest days of sales ever, which just kind of showed that we were onto something and that we really had garnered true support. The other thing was, after we had kind of gone through that, it was me who reached out to the FDA. And it kind of was this idea of, I don't know everything. You know, I started this because I'm passionate. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a nutritionist. I don't really understand how any of these kind of what the compliance is, how it works. Even from day one, I truly believe that anyone in food and beverage has an obligation to make sure that what we put out there is safe. So I invited them to come in thinking, oh, this will be great. And we can learn and I can tweak and.
[00:29:31] Ray Latif: Now for entrepreneurs listening out there, is the advice that you're giving called the FDA? No. I didn't think so.
[00:29:38] Hayden Slater: No. You know, look, it was, so in comes an FDA inspector and we chat and we then go to the back where we were producing now in our own commissary. And within minutes, I mean, the notepad was out and they were just frantically writing. It was probably about two minutes in where I started getting a little nervous. Did your co-founders get really mad at you? It was at the time, not really. I don't know how privy they were to that day or the fact that I even called them. Like these guys just showed up, man. I don't know. It's crazy. They just, I opened the door and they were here.
[00:30:11] Ray Latif: Must've been some rival juice company sending them our way.
[00:30:14] Hayden Slater: But after we kind of toured the commissary, we walked back and this, A very nice FDA inspector told me that we no longer could operate, that we were not in compliance, that we did not have HACCP, that we didn't have any of our SOPs. And I'm like, in my head, what's HACCP? What are SOPs? And what I asked them is, before you shut us down, since we had just been shut down, I said, look, we reached out to you intentionally. I don't want to cut corners. I want, as a business, to be doing everything the right way. So is there any way that we can work together? I'll bring on full FDA consultants. I'll do whatever you guys are comfortable with, because this really is an opportunity, A, for us to really create the foundation of something that something great, you know, here's an opportunity as a young new business who's literally reaching out to you for guidance to return that a bit and help give us guidance. And, you know, that's exactly what happened. We spent about a couple months back and forth. I got HACCP certified. I learned SOPs. We brought on consultants. We updated our labels. I mean, it was such an amazing learning Because we truly really wanted to do things the right way. It was never this intent of let's deceive or let's save cost. We just didn't know. So we were really fortunate to a learn because then we went to sleep knowing that our product was truly safe for everyone to consume. and B, an advantage that we had that we didn't even realize at the time, but because we were so young, we were early to budget for what the food safety cost is in this process, which is really astronomical.
[00:32:04] Ray Latif: We'll be back with more from Hayden Slater after this quick break.
[00:32:08] Public Health: Natural foods companies, hire your next great team member by listing your job on the Project Nosh job board. To learn more and list your job, visit Nosh.com slash jobs.
[00:32:21] Ray Latif: So streamlining manufacturing must also have benefits when it comes to innovation and being able to launch products relatively quickly. What's your timeline for launching new products?
[00:32:31] Hayden Slater: Yeah, innovation is actually one of the most exciting parts of Prest. And it's something that has evolved because as our assets have grown, we've really kind of seen that they've been advantageous for R&D and, you know, So, you know, in the early days, we would just throw ingredients together and, you know, kind of hope it tasted good. But now, you know, we've got this back-end manufacturing, which is massive and significant. I mentioned our lifestyle site, the Chalkboard Mag, which is, we get about a million uniques a month, which is kind of the perfect size audience of our exact customer to better understand ingredient wants and also you know, what are the benefits that people are looking for? So we kind of use the chalkboard, our social, all of, even our stores, to really take advantage of how we communicate with customers. We take that feedback, we give it to R&D, who works closely with medical, our medical advisory board, we create the product, and then we take about anywhere from five to seven stores and test product. We run it for two weeks, intentionally two weeks, because we want A, to see anytime something is new and glittery, it excites people. But we want to see, do people come back to it and will they buy it again? And then we take that insight and we either tweak or we launch, or we sometimes abandon. But what's really unique about Prest is we can launch a product in about six to seven weeks. And it's, you know, gotten insights from Chalkboard and social, it's been tested live, we've gotten customer feedback, and then it gets manufactured and made. That's incredible. Yeah, I mean, if you think about some of the big boys, I mean, it could take, you know, a couple years to launch something. So to get something through all those steps in that short a period of time is super unique and really exciting for us.
[00:34:28] Ray Latif: It's a real true innovation unit that's nimble and designed to be what it's supposed to be fast. Yeah.
[00:34:34] Hayden Slater: And it kind of goes to, you know, this belief that for those who don't take Omni serious or for those that just want to rely on third party information, there's some concern that, you know, we're moving really quickly and you got to be able to kind of keep up with innovation and with what's happening out there.
[00:34:55] Ray Latif: I mean, you mentioned it, it costs money. I mean, FDA consultants, food safety, lawyers, that's where investment comes into play. How did you go about finding and aligning with people that shared your vision and people that wouldn't cause a ruckus on your board, which we've seen so many other times in other companies where an investor You know, we'll sometimes kick out the entrepreneur, the founder, if he or she doesn't feel like, you know, the company's growing enough or doing the right thing.
[00:35:22] Hayden Slater: Absolutely. We didn't actually at the time. We started this company, me and my partners each put $30,000 in and we got to 28 stores self-funded. Wow. Yeah. So it was pretty incredible to kind of, you know, kind of witness the support that we were receiving that was really fueling the growth of Pressed Juicery. Now, when you say self-funded, were you just putting money back into the business?
[00:35:45] Ray Latif: Correct.
[00:35:46] Hayden Slater: Yeah, I mean, look, we were sleeping on couches, or I was, and not taking paychecks or anything, but. And you're still living out of a suitcase. Correct. But we, I don't know if someone gave me this advice early on, or if it's something that I just intuitively picked up on, but I remember so many of my peers who are in similar, you know, they had launched businesses at around the same time as us. And, you know, not juice companies, but in health and wellness. And they were doing these crazy raises. I mean, $100 million and $50 million. And I remember them, you know, the second it closed, going to their offices. And it's just like, it's like Google campus, you know, with the desks and that. And I really felt so strongly about penny pinching. And I thought that if we don't have access to capital, then we can't waste it. And every dollar we spend will be spent on what truly will move the needle. So I really didn't want to take on investment until we got to a place of we have to. And that was probably at about year three, three and a half or four, somewhere in there. And so when you were seeking investment, where'd you go? Friends and family. Yeah. Yeah. We went to, you know, what happened was year one, two were awesome. You know, press was crushing it. Year three, four got a little scary, you know, to be fully honest. Again, we didn't invent juice, but we were one of the first players. And I believe year three, four, we no longer were. There were tons of juice guys. I actually believe that there were 24 juice shops in a 1.7 mile radius in West Hollywood. So it was, uh, saturated. It was saturated. Yeah. It was then where we kind of had the, you know, the light bulb went off of, if we want to really win this, if we truly believe in what we've built, how are we going to do that? And that's where we had this, we need to focus on backend and we need to really win on manufacturing. It's not sexy. It's not, but that truly is how we will differentiate ourselves. We assembled a team of kind of experts in juice. From what I'm told from, you know, my team who's clearly had a lot more experience in manufacturing than I have or I had at the time, we kind of reinvented how juice was made. We kind of took it from a batch process, which it was historically always done, and we created kind of a continuous flow and patented it all. And that is really what kind of differentiates us from almost all the other juice players you see out there.
[00:38:25] Ray Latif: So what I'm hearing is that you guys have better cost margins. Correct. Well, that's always good. it's also an opportunity to decrease the cost of your juices, the consumer cost of juices as well. Absolutely.
[00:38:39] Hayden Slater: And we've truly done just that. I mean, we launched the company at $6.50, $8 price points, and we're now five and the product has not changed at all. I mean, we use the same ingredients. We haven't compromised at all. We just have taken those price advantages that we've received on the back and kind of delivered them to the front and to our customers.
[00:38:59] Ray Latif: Year one or two of your business, when you launched, institutional money, strategic investors were already getting involved in cold Pressed Juicery, Starbucks bought Evolution Fresh. If you had just launched a year or two earlier, you could have been part of Starbucks.
[00:39:11] Hayden Slater: I could have. But you know what? Everything happens exactly how it's meant to, and we were not meant to be a part of Starbucks.
[00:39:18] Ray Latif: A year later, Hanes Celestial bought Blueprints, and then 2015, Coca-Cola made a a big investment in Suja. And, you know, have, have these institutional investors, have these strategics come and knocked on your door and said, Oh, of course. Yeah.
[00:39:34] Hayden Slater: I remember, you know, early on sitting across from Coke and Pepsi, you know, and, and at their offices, when is early on, like This was probably 2012. Okay, so pretty early on. Yeah, and pinching myself. Like, I remember sitting there, like, pinching myself so hard. I could not believe that, like, here I am creating something that was really a passion project, and I'm sitting in front of Coke and Pepsi and Starbucks and, you know, and Bolthouse and Campbell's, and it was so exciting. You know, it was almost just being acknowledged, you know, the work that we were doing, but also more than anything, it gave us confidence that this is a growing sector. And, you know, everything our gut is telling us, keep following it.
[00:40:22] Ray Latif: So ultimately, you turned all of them down. Was it because the offers weren't where you wanted to be? Or was it just, you know, in principle, you didn't want to be?
[00:40:31] Hayden Slater: It wasn't right. And in all transparency, there weren't offers. You know, it wasn't like everyone was like, oh, we want to buy us. There was conversation with some, and there were some offers, but it wasn't like all four of who I mentioned were like trying to buy us. It just didn't feel right. To the best of my ability, I've always tried to make every decision, you know, factoring as many things as possible, but always listening to that kind of underlying, who are we? What did we start? What are we trying to create? What's our goal? And really allowing that to kind of dictate the decisions we make.
[00:41:06] Ray Latif: Intuition and gut feeling, very important for entrepreneurs. At the same time, there are opportunities out there to expand. There are opportunities to grow. Data will tell you a lot. For Prest, What do you see as the biggest opportunity to expand what you're doing to continue to grow? Is it in Pressed Juicery? Is it in food?
[00:41:26] Hayden Slater: Yeah, so I love this question and people kind of sometimes will roll their eyes with my response, but it really is how I feel. It's that really what keeps me up or what is on my mind always is the white space. You know, you live in New York, you live in LA, and you think we're saturated, but there is so many people in our own backyards that cannot access this product. And now that we've gotten to a point where we're a more accessible, realistic price point, it just completely opens up the areas in which we can enter. And, you know, I don't say this to be arrogant. I say it truly because I believe it. But I feel very much that every time we open a pressed store, we're bettering that community. We're flooding it with nutrients. We're flooding it with vitamins. And we're getting people to stop consuming a lot of the products that we know you shouldn't be consuming.
[00:42:17] Ray Latif: Do you see an endgame? Do you see an exit anytime soon? I mean, I know that's a hard question. That's one of those like, Yeah, I don't know.
[00:42:25] Hayden Slater: I know people also say, you don't know, but there was kind of this moment when I remember sitting with my partners and was kind of, I was going to transition from a co-founder to our CEO. And I made a commitment to myself at the time that to the best of my ability, I will always separate my personal from this business and do what's right for the business. And, you know, look, I'm a human, but I really do try to follow that. I am so unbelievably proud of what this team at Pressed Juicery has built. Every part of my being feels that we've barely touched the surface of what's to come. And if we, you know, get to a place where, you know, someone else is better suited to truly scale it while maintaining the integrity of what, I'm totally open. You know, there was this kind of moment I had at one point which was, Just because I'm the founder doesn't mean I'm best suited to be the CEO of the company. And, you know, I'm going to be open-minded and kind of, you know, trust that when it gets to a point and it feels right, be open-minded to what those options look like.
[00:43:34] Ray Latif: I hope this doesn't come across as weird, but I interviewed Amanda Chantel Bacon from Moon Juice, the founder of Moon Juice, I think it was about three years ago. And I remember the very first time I met her, she had this aura of Zen and patience and just calm about her. And I asked her, you know, where does it come from? She said, I think it's all the moon dust. And so, but you seem to have that as well. You seem very at peace with who you are and just right with the world. You know, how do you, how do you stay focused? How do you stay calm and collected all the time? I mean, and I'm only, you know, referencing your common collectiveness in our interview here. I mean, you know, you could probably walk out the door and just start screaming, you know, taxi cabs. I don't think you're going to do that, but.
[00:44:18] Hayden Slater: Again, I love this question because I think as a young entrepreneur, it's advice that I really hope to give other young entrepreneurs, which is all we can do is our best. Don't get me wrong, there were periods of time in this business where It was so overwhelming and so stressful and so unknown of what is happening and where we're going. And I would wake up in the middle of the night and have to like literally walk around my block just to calm down, just to be able to like go back to sleep. And I kind of had this... I've got to find balance. And the truth is, all I can do is my best. And I have to believe and trust that however this is meant to end, it will end that way. But I am not in control of everything. And again, you know, really what we can do is we show up and we work hard. And I think that there's something, you know, surrendering in that really helps kind of with everything else. Because it's really the truth. I mean, like, I can't force this into anything. It's going to become what it's meant to be. All I can do is kind of stay true and stay open minded. You know, how does this business evolve? And how do we kind of look at what's happening in the industry? And how does that, you know, make us pivot? You know, let's not ever be afraid to try things. Let's not be afraid to fail. But ultimately, like, let's, you know, we're human beings. All we can do is kind of our best.
[00:45:46] Ray Latif: You must have some other passions though than juice and entrepreneurship. No, just juice. Well, I've seen your Instagram account and I think you have like 10,000, just over 10,000 followers and some beautiful photos for there. I mean, are you a photographer?
[00:45:58] Hayden Slater: I'm not. I like to think of myself as one, but I'm not. I went to Africa. I think it was two years ago, a trip that like totally changed my life. But of course, I bought like a fancy camera and thought, oh, now I'm a photographer. I love the outdoors. You know, it's something that has always kind of fueled me personally, being in nature. You know, some people are desert, some people are beach people. For me, it's just nature. And I really, really work hard to make sure that I get to fuel myself and charge myself so that I can come back and be the best that I can with Prest and for Prest and, you know, for everyone who's a part of it.
[00:46:37] Ray Latif: Hayden, I've really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you so much for being with us on Taste Radio and hope to see you again really soon. Awesome. Thanks so much for having me. All right. That brings us to the end of episode 135. Thank you to our guest, Hayden Slater. Tune in on Friday, November 2nd for episode six of Taste Radio Insider, which features an interview with David Young, the founder of Green Monday, an innovative plant-based food platform. You can catch both Taste Radio and Taste Radio Insider on Taste Radio.com, iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, SoundCloud, and Spotify. As always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please send us an email to askatasteradio.com. On behalf of the entire Taste Radio team, thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.
