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[00:00:29] Taste Radio: Yes. Landis, I noticed you got the British, the British Siri, so do I. I always envisioned that an AI speaks to me with a British accent, so I had to make it happen.
[00:00:39] Carol Ortenberg: And now Taste Radio Insider.
[00:00:48] Ray Latif: Hey everyone, welcome to another edition of Taste Radio Insider. I'm Ray Latif, and with me are my BevNET and Nosh colleagues, Mike Schneider and Carol Ortenberg. This is episode five of Taste Radio Insider, and we're recording from our Taste Radio studio in Watertown, Mass. In this episode, we feature an interview with Spindrift founder and CEO, Bill Creelman and Caroline Kibler, the company's SVP of marketing, who discuss the continued evolution of the fast-growing sparkling water brand. 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'd love it if you'd rate us on iTunes. Just another quick note, this is the last episode of Taste Radio Insider that'll appear on the Taste Radio feed. I hope that doesn't sound too confusing, but we have two separate feeds for each of the podcasts, Taste Radio and Taste Radio Insider. We highly recommend that you subscribe to Insider on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, SoundCloud, or Stitcher.
[00:01:49] Carol Ortenberg: There's an easy way to do it using Siri, Mike. This is a good time to pick up your iPhone and say, hey Siri, subscribe to the Taste Radio Insider podcast. and say it exactly like that. Please do. I won't recognize my voice, so you actually have to say it, so you can't just hold it up to the...
[00:02:05] Ray Latif: You can do that on Alexa. You can do that on Amazon, right, too. You just tell your Alexa device. Yeah, you can tell Alexa to subscribe to the podcast, too. There you go. As I mentioned, we're joined by Carol Ortenberg, our editor for Nosh. Carol, thanks so much for being with us. Thanks for having me. So you've been tirelessly covering news on the site, including three major funding announcements that have happened over the past couple of weeks. Carol, can I say you put the fun in funding? Nicely done, Mike.
[00:02:33] Bill Creelman: I like covering funding.
[00:02:34] Carol Ortenberg: It's exciting. I love when you do it.
[00:02:35] Bill Creelman: I get all energized. If you've got your funding news, send it over. It wakes me up on a Monday morning. I like it.
[00:02:43] Ray Latif: Money into the food world. Well done. Well, Kite Hill announced a really big fundraise last week, $40 million. Tell us about that.
[00:02:53] Bill Creelman: Yeah, so Kite Hill is a plant-based dairy company. They produce drinkable yogurts, Greek yogurts, European style yogurts, cheese, ravioli. They started kind of with this model of more artisanal specialty cheeses, and they've since expanded and broadened their portfolio to more sort of mass product lines like the yogurt. Their feeling is that, you know, fluid milk, UC plant-based milk, disrupting that category left and right. How come we don't see it in cheese and yogurt and everything else? The answer, according to them, is that there was never a great tasting option that also had the same health benefits as traditional dairy products.
[00:03:32] Carol Ortenberg: So... So they don't do any milk at all?
[00:03:35] Bill Creelman: Almond milk.
[00:03:36] Carol Ortenberg: Oh, okay.
[00:03:36] Bill Creelman: Almond milk. And financing this bet on the industry is 301, which is the venture arm of General Mills and Kavu Venture Partners. Both of those firms previously invested in Kite Hill, and now they're investing an additional $40 million.
[00:03:55] Carol Ortenberg: Side note, I've seen a lot of companies spelling milk with M-star-L-K, just like I spell Spurs.
[00:04:01] Ray Latif: S-P-star-R-S. This is a really insider podcast, isn't it? Well done.
[00:04:07] Carol Ortenberg: Carol, busy year for Kite Hill. They sort of felt to me like they came out of nowhere. They had a lot of products on the shelf and now they've got $40 million. What's going on there?
[00:04:16] Bill Creelman: Well, as their CEO told me, 2018 was their poised for growth year. So over the course of the year, new CEO, a lot of new executives. They also released some products in 2017 that they pulled off the market in 2018 and just re-released back on. Their drinkable yogurts, their kids' tubes, and some Greek yogurt flavors. They realized they needed to focus on scaling their capacity first. And this funding was the last piece of the puzzle to set them up for a really strong 2019, they say, and beyond.
[00:04:49] Ray Latif: So Cabo was also involved in a big round for a company called Once Upon a Farm. They're known for their baby food products. Carol, tell us about why Cabo invested in that company.
[00:05:03] Bill Creelman: Yeah, Once Upon a Farm is an up-and-coming fresh children's food company, very well-known in the industry for their relatively new CEO, John Forker, who previously was at Annie's, and their celebrity co-founder, Jen Garner. The brand currently has cold-pressed baby food, applesauce pouches, and now a line of spoonable baby food. They're really betting on this concept that the baby food aisle has kind of remained the same. The biggest innovation was going from jars to pouches. And just like consumers are looking for fresh food in their own diets, now they're going to want that for their children as well.
[00:05:43] Ray Latif: As much as CAVA was investing in the potential for Once Upon a Farm and baby food and children's food products, they're making a bet on John Foraker as leading the company himself. He is, as you mentioned, a proven operator, formerly the president of Annie's, right?
[00:05:59] Bill Creelman: Yeah. And what he did with Annie's was really scale it to be a major kids' food company, then sold it to General Mills. The question is, can Once Upon a Farm do the same thing with fresh baby food and fresh children's food?
[00:06:12] Ray Latif: And there's a question about the amount of space that's available for those kinds of products, right? I mean, there's a limited amount of cooler space in all these stores. So, you know, what's the strategy for Once Upon a Farm in expanding that availability of space?
[00:06:27] Bill Creelman: Well right now the place they found their most successful is in the children's dairy set like where you see squeezable yogurt tubes and stuff because there's a high amount of cross shop between that and the baby food set. But they told Nosh that they will be partnering with retailers to roll out in aisle coolers. They say this is something they know retailers want. and they want to be the food company to supply them with that in aisle segment. I personally am really excited for that. I think there's a lot of categories that would benefit from being in center store. You know, have your fresh salsas right next to the canned salsas. Whole Foods experimented with that a little bit. Curious to see how they continue to evolve that now that Amazon is backing them as well.
[00:07:09] Ray Latif: There's a theme here, right? Kavu is also an investor, led the recent funding round for a bone broth company called Kettle and Fire.
[00:07:19] Carol Ortenberg: What was Kavu's interest in that company? It's Kavu week on Taste Radio Insider, it seems like. Were you able to knock all that news out in one phone call?
[00:07:26] Bill Creelman: No, no, many phone calls, many chats with Kavu. Always enjoy catching up with them. But it does speak to the fact that building out a strong portfolio really is important right now. And when brands are looking for their investor, they want to see who else they've invested in and where they've put their money. And if they've invested with other rising brands, that can play a big role in a brand deciding to go with that firm.
[00:07:50] Ray Latif: So Ketel and Fyre, as I mentioned, bone broth company, what makes them an interesting target for Kavu?
[00:07:56] Bill Creelman: They previously invested $8 million in August. This was an additional $8 million. It was led by Kavu again, and Rokana Ventures and some strategic individual investors also took part. A little different than the first round in that the first $8 million investment was to build distribution, marketing, and production, while this secondary investment was to provide some liquidity to early investors and employees.
[00:08:21] Ray Latif: So were both pieces of funding part of the same round? I mean, it seems kind of strange that the money came in only a couple months apart, right?
[00:08:29] Bill Creelman: You know, Kettle & Fire and Kavu told me that the firm had always planned to invest a larger sum. They just decided to structure the deal as a two-part investment.
[00:08:39] Ray Latif: So before we got on the mics, we were actually sort of riffing on Bone Broth and the various ways they're marketed, merchandised and sold. What makes Kettle & Fire different from some of the other brands that are out there?
[00:08:49] Bill Creelman: Kettle & Fire is one of the very few shelf-stable bone broths. What that means is that it's much easier for them to ship direct to consumer. So while they're doing very well in retail, they say, e-commerce is a huge part of their business, in particular subscriptions models. So you can go online and purchase Kettle & Fire, you know, a pack, or you can subscribe and every month they'll, or a couple of weeks, they'll send some Kettle & Fire directly to your door. And they've told me that's, you know, something they'll continue to focus on while building this retail distribution out.
[00:09:21] Ray Latif: I always like to know that I'm going to get my bone broth every Tuesday. How about you, Mike?
[00:09:25] Carol Ortenberg: Just like your Taste Radio, Ray. You get your bone broth, you get your Taste Radio. At 1 p.m.
[00:09:29] Bill Creelman: He just sits there sipping a steaming cup of bone broth and listens to his own voice on iTunes.
[00:09:35] Ray Latif: Hey, you know, it is what it is.
[00:09:38] Carol Ortenberg: You might, as an entrepreneur, be asking yourself, well, why did one company get 40 million and another got eight? The answer there, of course, is valuation. You know, investors look at how much money they can get back when they put the money in.
[00:09:49] Ray Latif: But where do you find such investors, Mike? I would say you'd find them at Nosh Live, which takes place in about a month. Carol, as you've been working tirelessly on site content, you've also been working tirelessly on putting together a lineup of speakers for the events. And you have some announcements to make, yes?
[00:10:08] Bill Creelman: Yeah, we have some fantastic speakers at Nosh Live. If you are a follower of Taste Radio, you might recognize Angie Bastin, who is the co-founder of Angie's Boom Chicka Pop. Particularly excited to have her on stage. I thought the podcast was awesome and we're going to continue that conversation about how she evolved the Brad Avery time at Nosh Live. We've also got Miguel Garza, who's the co-founder and CEO of Ciete Family Foods. Great video on Nosh from the Summer Fancy Food Show talking about how they position the brand as a Mexican-American product. We're gonna continue that conversation on stage as well. And speaking of Once Upon a Farm, Ray, we've got John Foraker joining us to talk about boards. He's got a unique perspective in that he both has a board for Once Upon a Farm as well as he serves on boards for some of the hottest young food companies in the industry. So that will be a super exciting conversation.
[00:11:11] Ray Latif: We're also going to hear from the retailer side as well. Right, Carol?
[00:11:15] Bill Creelman: You're right, we're also going to have Kroger joining us. They have been running this really cool program in the industry where they host sort of demo days at Kroger headquarters. And they're going to be expounding on their focus on rising innovative new products as well as natural products and how they're integrating that throughout the store.
[00:11:35] Ray Latif: Rising innovative natural products. Sounds like Pitch Slam to me. It does sound like Pitch Slam. Now for brands listening who want to get involved in the Nosh Pitch Slam, Mike, how would they do so?
[00:11:47] Carol Ortenberg: Ray, they can go to noshlive.com and learn about the event first. It is a commitment to be involved in Pitch Slam, but you do get a lot of great exposure to the industry, expert judges. You become a bit of a celebrity during the show. And basically all of your doors are very warm after you pitch on stage at Nosh Live.
[00:12:05] Ray Latif: It's a fun experience. It's fun to watch it. It's fun to be a part of it, I'm sure. You know, when I'm on stage for the New Beverage Showdown, hosting that competition, it's just fun to hear about all these different stories, getting on stage and actually performing and doing what they do. Kudos to anyone who can do it because it's tough. But as you mentioned, Mike, it's a very rewarding experience.
[00:12:26] Carol Ortenberg: The judges will give you on-the-spot feedback, and then you can talk to them afterwards, and then people come up to you during the event. As Ray said before, we have a lot of investors that come to this event. The last Nosh Live had over 30 investment companies there, and suppliers, and service providers, package designers, things of that nature. They're all there to help you with your biggest challenges after you pitch.
[00:12:48] Bill Creelman: One of our earliest winners, Bronx Hot Sauce, actually told me they sort of changed how they positioned themselves. They iterated on their name, all thanks to feedback they got from the Pitch Slam.
[00:12:59] Ray Latif: And the winner of the Pitch Slam gets an advertising package worth $10,000, but the exposure, priceless. Priceless, Ray. There it is.
[00:13:09] Carol Ortenberg: There are a bunch of other opportunities for exposure at Nosh Live. One of them is the Sampling Experience and Expo where the Nosh team takes over for you and lets you get away from the booth and talk to these investors, service providers, suppliers about the challenges that you have scaling your business. And they're there to help you solve problems and you'll find your next partner.
[00:13:26] Ray Latif: I love this sampling experience. You get to eat so many good things.
[00:13:30] Carol Ortenberg: It's fun. So great. It's fun. And to find out what that experience is about, again, you can check out noshlive.com. We've got some testimonies from Susie herself, from Susie's, and we've got John Sebastiani talking about it, and our friend Christy from Honey Mamas. Right on. Honey Mamas.
[00:13:47] Ray Latif: If Mike's love of Honey Mamas is not known to our audience at this point, you haven't been listening. Or at least you haven't been listening very carefully.
[00:13:55] Carol Ortenberg: I love Honey Mamas. Shout out to Honey Mamas.
[00:13:58] Ray Latif: Yes, indeed.
[00:13:59] Bill Creelman: If you are a good listener, and all these things we've talked about, investing, sampling, Nosh Live, intrigue you, we're actually hiring for two positions on the editorial team. We have an editorial assistant across multiple publications, and then we're hiring for a reporter at Nosh.
[00:14:17] Carol Ortenberg: Get to work with you.
[00:14:18] Bill Creelman: Yes, woo-hoo.
[00:14:19] Carol Ortenberg: That's awesome. Right on.
[00:14:21] Bill Creelman: You can find both of those listings on our job board.
[00:14:23] Carol Ortenberg: Nosh.com slash jobs.
[00:14:26] Ray Latif: Shifting gears to the beverage side of what we do, let's talk about our featured interview for this episode. That was Spindrift founder and CEO Bill Creelman and Caroline Kibler, the company's Senior Vice President of Marketing. Devoted listeners of Taste Radio may recall that we've had Bill on the mics a couple times prior to this episode, and with good reason. Spindrift has been one of the most dynamic and fastest growing brands in the beverage industry in recent years. Having simplified its formulation and solidified its positioning within the sparkling water category, Spindrift is now embarking on a bolder marketing strategy, one that has brought actress Kristen Bell into the fold as a brand ambassador. In the following interview, Mike and I spoke with Bill and Caroline at Spindrift headquarters in Newton, Mass., and discussed the evolution of the brand and its marketing efforts. We also discussed how the company is building upon the food service and retail partnerships that have supported its development, and how Spindrift is attempting to add incremental value to the brand through product innovation. All right, Mike and I are here at Spindrift headquarters in Newton, Massachusetts, and we're joined by the founder and CEO, Bill Creelman, and the Senior Vice President of Marketing, Caroline Kibler. Thank you so much for hosting us here at your amazing office.
[00:15:37] Caroline Kibler: Yeah, we're excited. You guys have been down the road for a year and we haven't gotten to do this, so a treat to have you.
[00:15:43] Carol Ortenberg: My first day, Craven's like, we got to get down to Spindrift. Well, I'm here now, so that's great.
[00:15:48] Ray Latif: But you're at a different office. As I was saying, you know, to Bill earlier, this is the third installment of a sort of a trilogy of being on the podcast. The first two times we were at your office in Waltham, you've since moved to Newton. This office is beautiful. It's bigger for sure. You've got more employees. You've got a lot more desks. How many people work at the company now?
[00:16:09] Caroline Kibler: We are somewhere in the low to mid seventies today. So we've had a incredible expansion of the team, but you know, I think as we told you earlier, I think the thing we're the most proud of is it still feels a lot like it did, you know, in the early days we're scrappy, hungry, keeping it fun and entrepreneurial. So it's always a hard balance to strike.
[00:16:33] Ray Latif: And the early days is something that's kind of interesting because of all this time that I've known you, Bill, I think I've known you for about seven years, I've never asked you where the name Spindrift came from. So please enlighten me and our audience.
[00:16:46] Caroline Kibler: Yeah, it's interesting. When we started the brand, that question, just even what spindrift is, came up a lot. I think I would say it's still probably maybe half of our consumers are aware. So spindrift is the whitewash of a wave. So as a wave is breaking, it gets really narrow at the top. And on a windy day, the top of the wave gets sheared off and that mist that tumbles. above the ocean or during a snowstorm is called spindrift. So I was introduced to the word when I was about 15 or 16. I was living out on Nantucket working in the fishing industry. I was a mate on one of the charter boats and one of my captains on a particularly windy day a particularly spin-drifty day, said to me, you know, do you know what this mist is called? And I was sort of ducking waves and getting soaked. I said, no, I don't, you know, I'm not sure. And he said, well, it's called spin drift. And for whatever reason, it just stuck with me. I thought it was a sort of interesting word. It was spin and drift are kind of emotionally charged.
[00:17:49] Carol Ortenberg: And so... Yeah, good thing it wasn't called like duck waft or something like that.
[00:17:55] Caroline Kibler: So when I was trying to think of a name for our sparkling water line that meant refreshing and, you know, I kind of returned to this time in my life and this word that I thought was really fun and interesting.
[00:18:08] Ray Latif: And you've been in the beverage industry for some time, first with Stirrings, a line of cocktail mixers, and now with Spindrift. Caroline, you know, you came to Spindrift about a year or so ago?
[00:18:16] Kristen Bell: Yeah, almost exactly a year ago.
[00:18:18] Ray Latif: And where were you before Spindrift?
[00:18:20] Kristen Bell: I was at Coca-Cola.
[00:18:21] Ray Latif: Okay.
[00:18:21] Kristen Bell: Yeah.
[00:18:22] Ray Latif: Big company.
[00:18:22] Kristen Bell: Yep. So most recently at Coca-Cola, I was looking after the smart water business and it was a really fun sort of part of Coca-Cola. We were very focused on innovation and We launched a sparkling product and had a lot of fun sort of managing that lifestyle brand.
[00:18:39] Carol Ortenberg: You say you were looking after, you're making sure it like doesn't pick on the other kids or what sort of?
[00:18:44] Kristen Bell: Protecting it, right? So a brand like that, that's already established there, it is sort of a, the role is a bit of protecting and polishing. So sort of picking up where the person before me left off and trying to kind of make it bigger and stronger.
[00:19:00] Carol Ortenberg: While preserving the essence.
[00:19:02] Kristen Bell: Exactly, exactly. I really did think of my role, especially in the context of Coca-Cola, very much around protecting that brand. So when people wanted to lightweight the bottle, you know, I took a hard stand on that and that kind of thing. So it really was about how to sort of pick up, you know, where the brand was when I inherited it and make it bigger and stronger.
[00:19:24] Ray Latif: Now when Spindrift launched, it was part of the premium soda segment. Now you guys are part of this premium water segment that Caroline was talking about. And it's gotten really big, especially the sparkling end of it. Bill, how big is the sparkling water category at this point in the US?
[00:19:38] Caroline Kibler: I think it's now considered to be the fastest growing category in beverage at least by tonnage and on a percentage basis 15 to 20 percent. So I think it puts it this year will be over three billion dollars. Well it's interesting though to Caroline's comments about the space and just. the category and, you know, our evolution has very much kind of followed the broader evolution of the category, the lines have blurred, you know, now between what is a soda, what's a sparkling water. I think we've, you know, we sort of very much followed that journey along the way, but we're very happy to say now we're sort of, you know, squarely planted in the, you know, the flavored or the, you know, the kind of premium sparkling water space. And I think that's really sort of where there's a lot of consumer interest now in this subset.
[00:20:27] Ray Latif: There's also a lot of strata within that sparkling water space. Where do you see Spindrift is sort of fitting into the overall category?
[00:20:34] Caroline Kibler: You know, I think from our perspective, we are focused on the premium end of the sparkling water set. So when we kind of describe it internally, we think about, you know, there was a big and long tail to sparkling water going back years that largely was the same product. It was an essence brand, lightly flavored, and it typically was tied to a region of the country. We've really come in with a totally different proposition using sparkling water and real ingredients and using that as our platform to differentiate among the subsets. So when we talk internally, when we talk to our customers, we really see ourselves as, you know, really sort of pioneering the premium space for the first time.
[00:21:18] Carol Ortenberg: I've also noticed that you have a very short ingredient deck. In fact, you're one of the few companies that I know that would actually apologize for putting hibiscus into your grapefruit for color. It in parentheses says for color. Talk a little bit about the importance of that.
[00:21:30] Caroline Kibler: When we, I guess, last left off in our conversation with you guys, you know, we were really... The sequel, so to speak. The sequel, right, exactly. You know, we were on this journey and really trying to understand what we were as a brand and where we sat in this, you know, crowded, flavored, sparkling water space. And where we landed was very much squarely in the real ingredient camp. We wanted to be the brand that really, for the first time, kind of took a very big and established category in a new direction. In order to do that, we wanted to hold ourselves to a really high standard of ingredients and not use natural flavors, not use natural colors, really use ingredients that people understood, that they maybe had in their kitchen or their cabinet. and really make sure that we did it in a high integrity way. And so that's kind of where we still live today is very much in that role. And it does require you to make hard decisions along the way and steer away from ingredients that are not clear or not squeezable or not real. this new standard we've set up. But it's also provided, I think, a really bright line between what our product is and stands for and the category.
[00:22:43] Ray Latif: That line is apparent to us, to me and Mike, and to folks in the industry. Is it as apparent to the consumer though? And if it's not, you know, what do you have to do to make that consumer care about why your product is different and what you're doing to sort of advance their palates?
[00:23:00] Kristen Bell: Yeah. Well, it's interesting. I mean, if you look across the entire food and beverage landscape, you can see that consumers, especially younger ones, are way more educated on ingredients than certainly I was at that age and growing up. And I think What we found is that people are willing to pay more for something that tastes great, has real ingredients and comes from a brand that they have some sort of emotional connection to. Our job has really been about just trying to sort of expand that awareness and that introduction process to what Spindrift is. When people first sort of see the product and taste it, you know, they immediately have kind of a visceral reaction to, oh man, this, this tastes really different than everything else in the category. And it tastes really good. It tastes like the fruit that's on the can, on the front of the can. that's sort of an entree into the real ingredient part of our story. And I think people do care. I think up until now, whereas there has been a lot of sort of consciousness about the ingredients in food, you've seen a huge proliferation of fast casual restaurants, for example, that are catering toward organic locally sourced from local farms. I think that consumer mindset is now sort of branching over into beverages and Spindrift, you know, aims to kind of be there as people are sort of waking up to the importance of ingredients in the category.
[00:24:29] Ray Latif: It also helps when you are Instagram savvy. I saw in your office, you have your own photo studio. You do all your stuff in-house, which is pretty cool. It also helps when you have a high profile ambassador for the Creelman and Spindrift recently partnered with Kristen Bell on a series of advertisements. Tell us how that kind of came together. And especially, you know, it was interesting to me because Kristen Bell, I hope this doesn't come across the wrong way. She sounds expensive. And she sounds like someone who, you know, is a very in-demand person at this point. So I've got to think that it was a big leap for you guys to make that call.
[00:25:05] Kristen Bell: There's sort of three ways we were focused on getting our message out there this year. So one is the things we did ourselves to tell our story. So some big sort of national awareness driving tactics like print and out of home in some markets and digital and and certainly social media is sort of one part of it. The second is getting our fans to tell our story for us. And that's much more about community management, which we all do and which we do completely in-house.
[00:25:37] Ray Latif: Can you elaborate on what you mean by community management?
[00:25:39] Kristen Bell: Yeah, so really cultivating relationships with our fans in the social space, whether it's when we go to launch a new product. Our fans that have been loyal to us are sort of the first to know. They're usually the first to receive and try and taste the product, new flavors. We saw a huge favorable fan response when we launched our half and half earlier this year because we really rolled it out to our fans first.
[00:26:04] Carol Ortenberg: And how do you do that? How do you roll it out to your fans when, you know, in the Instagram world, I mean, I guess you can just post it on Instagram and there's a call to arms there. Or is there, you know, do you have a more direct connection?
[00:26:15] Kristen Bell: We ran it literally through Instagram. And so it was a, the lead up to that launch was very much a reveal. So we, we see quite a bit of interaction with our fans constantly asking what's the next flavor going to be or offering suggestions on what the next flavor should be. And we, we Brad Avery single one of those. I mean, we do keep track of what people are requesting and looking for. it definitely is an input into our innovation pipeline process. So it was exciting for our fans to kind of see that unveiling of what Half & Half came to be. And then in terms of being the first to try it, we literally produced a small batch of the product that we only made available to our fans through a promotional giveaway on Instagram first, before we brought it to other national customers and the broader e-com channel.
[00:27:06] Ray Latif: How many did you give away?
[00:27:08] Kristen Bell: 500 cases, I think, in the first run. And we sold out in literally between the giveaway and sort of early access. I wish it was in less than two weeks. Kristen, actually, we started talking to her, it was actually kind of late in the process of developing our game plan, our marketing game plan for this year. We heard that she was a fan. We had the opportunity to get together with her out in California and really just have a sit-down conversation around what's important to her, what are the things she's passionate about. And it's funny, she told us how she's been making her own version of flavored sparkling water for years using fruit out of their yard, and how Spindrift sort of is a shortcut to that process. And it just felt very natural and organic. She really fell in love with the brand story and the product story and was keen to help kind of put a megaphone on what we were trying to do from an awareness standpoint. We felt like it was a good fit because for starters, she's just a good human. We definitely got that feel the first time we met with her and, you know, because she was already a fan of the brand and drinking the category, but also really kind of lives a lot of the values and sort of personifies a lot of the brand values that we are, that are important to us. And, you know, you can see that in a lot of the different things she's involved in. Her style is very much just telling it like it is. And I think at Spindrift, we are really trying to tell our simple story in a simple and transparent and straightforward way, which we just felt like was a great sort of complement with her sort of style.
[00:29:00] Ray Latif: How do you determine the timing was right to align with someone of her, I guess, celebrity?
[00:29:05] Kristen Bell: You know, our mission for this year, I would say, and Bill, jump in here, was sort of twofold. One was to really just scale awareness of our point of difference, however we chose to do that. And the second was a big focus on testing and learning. And when I came on board, Bill, you know, said, look, I know we're going to like try some things and not everything's going to work. And it's OK if some things really don't work. And I think coming from, you know, much bigger organizations was sort of a newer mentality for me. And it really kind of lifted some of the pressure of like, you know, let's just try a bunch of different things and see what resonates. with the idea of next year scaling the things that seem to be working well.
[00:29:55] Ray Latif: So Caroline alluded to the half and half product as being a big set for Spindrift. And then Bill, I mean, you've been in the trenches, mixing it up for a long time, trying to iterate and put out the best product you can. And now that you do have sort of this established foundation of we are a sparkling water company, we're fizzy water and fruit juice or fizzy water and fruit.
[00:30:22] Kristen Bell: Real squeezed fruit.
[00:30:23] Ray Latif: I'm sorry?
[00:30:24] Kristen Bell: Real squeezed fruit.
[00:30:25] Ray Latif: Yes, says the marketing person. Yep, that's it.
[00:30:27] Carol Ortenberg: Would you just leave this to the marketing people?
[00:30:33] Ray Latif: You don't really have to iterate anymore. You don't have to mess around with your formulation as much, even though there are some tweaks with working with fresh fruit. Your positioning is pretty much established at this point. You know, what do you have to do to maintain that sort of chaos, I think, that drives so many entrepreneurial companies, that gets them excited about changing every day and evolving every single day?
[00:30:57] Caroline Kibler: Yeah, there's still plenty of chaos as you just turn around and look back out.
[00:31:01] Ray Latif: If we open up that door over there, there'd just be people screaming, there'd be fruit juice all over the place. We're in a soundproof room.
[00:31:08] Caroline Kibler: I do think you're absolutely right. I mean, for our business, we really started where we had to start, which is making sure we could make the product the way we needed to. It was such a simple idea of ingredients, incredibly hard to execute. So a lot of our early years were spent on just fulfilling the potential that we saw in the product. I would say the space outside of our offices is no less confusing than it was when we started. Sparkling water is really just starting to emerge. with retailers. We have a number of retailers that have really gotten behind us that really believe in real ingredients in the other part of their menu. And so we're now, you know, helping evangelize our points of difference. You know, most recently Panera has been a great supporter and really been preaching a lot of our same messaging. Chipotle is incredible. They've come on board and in some regions and have done an awesome job and very much sort of philosophically aligned. Starbucks, Kroger, Target, you know, these are, I think initially you're really using your retail partners and your food service partners to really sort of help provide that megaphone for who you are and why you're different. But man, oh man, it's just, it continues, you know, far beyond that. Our challenge now is how do we, you know, in an incredibly crowded space, you know, how do we really, you know, punch above our weight and ensure that consumers, you know, see the product, identify it, all the things that Caroline mentioned before they get to the shelf and therefore are really looking for the brand as opposed to coming in and trying to figure it out kind of on the fly.
[00:32:53] Ray Latif: Is part of that extending the current line of flavors that you have? Is it new packaging? I mean, how are you trying to reach different consumers in different places and for different day part uses?
[00:33:05] Caroline Kibler: We are not going to just sort of continue to pump out products just to make kind of new news. As we enter our nine products, we'll have a new introduction for next year that we're really excited about. For us, it's more about finding places to tell our story and doing it through sparkling water and real ingredients. I think what we've seen is people come into the brand usually through one of the flavors and then they come in and they're sort of suddenly given a whole bunch of different choices now. Some people might enjoy the strawberry in the morning, and then move to the half and half after lunch, and then maybe have a blackberry later in the day. So I think we definitely want to be able to walk through with our consumer through an entire sort of day need set. But the fundamentals will always remain. It's sparkling water. It's real ingredients. And that's kind of our true north whenever we do our development.
[00:34:05] Carol Ortenberg: You said something that we hear from so many founders. We're launching a product that we're excited about. Of course you're excited about it. What is it about a new product from Spindrift that excites you? What is it that says, oh, we need to put something new out there? So our product
[00:34:23] Caroline Kibler: development cycle is really long. You know, it takes years. We get rid of probably 70% of the ideas because they just don't meet that really high standard of being delicious, refreshing, you know, unsweetened. The supply story and, you know, supply chain just broadly makes sense for us. So just getting to the finish line with one of our products is a huge victory from our perspective.
[00:34:49] Carol Ortenberg: I still think the dragon fruit habanero would have been amazing.
[00:34:53] Caroline Kibler: You just have to submit that through Instagram. So in almost every case, we've really had to go back and retrench and make sure that it meets that kind of strict definition that we've set. And it's still delicious. I mean, it's a real obligation to us. It's a point of pride we want. every product to be a conversation starter and a category changer. And so when you're holding yourself to that type of bar, you know, you better make, really make sure that you can do it and do it successfully, continuously at scale.
[00:35:31] Carol Ortenberg: So what is it about when you, when you get to that point, you say, all right, this is going to help us further penetrate the category. You know, how do you know that this flavor is going to be the one that is good enough to do that?
[00:35:42] Caroline Kibler: I would not say we're quite as calculated as that. I think it's more of what we love, what we enjoy, you know, what we hear back from our consumers that they would be interested in. I mean, we still have an incredible just curiosity, you know, what can we squeeze and carbonate with delicious, you know, sort of ingredients and what will that taste like? I mean, that kind of curiosity hasn't left the building at all. Our development philosophy is to take products that people are familiar with, but do it in mind-blowing ways. And that sometimes works for us, you know, in our way of doing it, and sometimes it doesn't. But I think it's that curiosity and kind of the insatiable excitement about where this, the promise of this type, this product platform we've created, where it can go, that really, you know, continues to get the juices flowing, so to speak.
[00:36:37] Ray Latif: So Bill, you mentioned a couple of your food service partners, including Starbucks and Panera, and how they add value or offer value to your company through awareness and sort of helping to evangelize consumers. How are you offering them value? We talked a little bit about this, this concept, I guess, before we got on the mics, which is you're looking at new ways to offer perhaps fountain options for Spindrift, but, you know, beyond the fountains or maybe including the fountains, you know, what are some of the ways that you are providing value to your customers?
[00:37:09] Caroline Kibler: You know, we're incredibly grateful to the kind of fast casual food service world for helping us on this journey. You know, we've, we've really ridden sidecar with those guys from the earliest days in 2010, 11. from, you know, Sweet Green in its earliest days and Dig In and Beloco locally in Boston, because they were trying to solve the same problem we were. You know, they didn't like the idea of making a delicious, thoughtful burrito or salad only to have to turn around and serve a sparkling product that didn't meet their same standard for ingredients. I guess what I would say kind of more broadly is we continue to sit with them at the table, talk to them continuously. We have a whole team dedicated here to exactly that partnership to say, okay, well, what are your future needs? Is that, you mentioned dispense, is that part of it? Is it collaborating on an ingredient that we can make together? We'll make it as a sparkling water, you make it as a salad dressing or as a sauce. We now have so much shared learnings around farming and farmers and seasonality and, you know, how real ingredients behave, how consumers respond to real ingredients. But we also have so much to learn still. And so we really think about them. It's not even a sales channel for us. It's really kind of a thought leading partner, you know, collaborator. And we just, we really feel it's important to continue to listen and share and kind of think through this as the space continues to evolve. I mean, our perspective is there's just still miles and miles to go. And, you know, from our side, we feel like we're just getting started in terms of this conversion and awareness.
[00:39:00] Ray Latif: So it's just really about open communication between you and your partners about what is in their future plans and how you address it, how you, you know, fill those needs.
[00:39:08] Caroline Kibler: Yeah, I would say it's exactly that. If you just look at what's happened in the fast casual space, I mean, what you used to get 10 years ago for lunch in Boston is totally different than what you're going to get today. And so you can imagine, you know, then how that impacts our business. So, you know, before no one was ordering on their phone, you know, to pre-ordering and, you know, setting it aside somewhere in the restaurant and coming and pick it up. So, you know, we often will sit and say, okay, so since your business has evolved in this way, like what can we do to now help you? Let's look at your app. Let's see if there's an opportunity for Spindrift to participate in somehow making your story more clear so that the consumer understands better. So that's the type of conversation that we're part of. This whole space moves so fast. I think you just have to continue to keep those lines of communication open and review our role as being a bigger part of their storytelling mission. You know, that's really how we like to position ourselves.
[00:40:09] Ray Latif: Now, the sparkling water category, it's hard to mention it without talking about LaCroix. And, you know, certainly one of the fastest growing brands in recent memory. a beloved brand. And I wonder how much you think about LaCroix or how much you think about some of the upstarts that are launching fast and furious. You know, we see a new sparkling water beverage and brand it seems like every other day. You know, how much do you think about your competition, those that are the upstarts and those that are the giants?
[00:40:46] Kristen Bell: Sparkling water is our frame of reference and certainly the launch of new brands helps bring more attention and focus to the category and new consumers to the category. We've talked before about how there's a pretty low barrier to entry when the ingredient list is sparkling water and natural flavors. It's very accessible, it's easy to do. So I think that's what's driving a lot of the proliferation of brands. We have a pulse on what those companies are doing, but we think of Spindrift more as pioneering a new segment of the category.
[00:41:23] Caroline Kibler: Yeah, I'll just add on to that. I mean, we really don't spend a lot of time talking internally about the other brands for the reasons Caroline mentioned. It's just, we're incredibly grateful on the one hand, this flavored sparkling water category was here long before us. You know, our competition is all 30 years old or older, and they're, you know, continuing to, you know, grow also. And I think we just see our product as kind of the 2.0 version of flavored sparkling water. we'd like to be thought of as the brand that ushered in a new age of flavored sparkling water that actually celebrated real ingredients, had it on the front label and the back of the label so that, you know, for the consumers that care about real ingredients, that are looking for a change from what they may have grown up with or what was available historically that, you know, were there for them. So it really is not helpful, from my perspective, to dwell on any particular competitor. sit next to them in the space, they're servicing their folks, we're doing our thing, and I'd say that type of focus has really served us well historically and continues to be our modus operandi. We sort of don't think about any one brand as needing to, you know, kind of move them over or move them down. It's really much more about defining a category clearly so that a consumer goes in and understands there's a difference for them. So that informs everything we do from our communication to our packaging, to how we talk, you know, internally within the team. We will be successful if we have helped bring a premium set to the sparkling water section of the store.
[00:43:08] Ray Latif: Outstanding. Well, you're on your way, it seems like. And I really appreciate every time I come here and hear how Spindrift is evolving. I mean, I think I wrote my first story about Spindrift was in, say, 2011 or 12. And it was a very different company at the time. And it's interesting because there are still people nostalgic about the sodas that you used to sell. I got an email, it was a very weird email about this guy. this whole thing that they moved to sparkling water. I mean, I really love the soda. How come they don't have the soda anymore? It was really strange. But anyway, I'll share it with you at a different time. Thank you so much for being on Taste Radio. We look forward to having you on for the fourth installment, perhaps, you know, a year or two down the line.
[00:43:49] Kristen Bell: Sounds good. Thank you.
[00:43:53] Ray Latif: That brings us to the end of episode five of Taste Radio Insider. Thank you so much for listening. And thanks to our guests, Bill Creelman and Caroline Kibler. Tune in next week for episode 135 of the flagship Taste Radio podcast, when we're joined by Pressed Juicery co-founder and CEO, Hayden Slater. Please subscribe to Taste Radio Insider on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, SoundCloud, and Google Play. And as always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please send us an email to ask at Taste Radio. On behalf of the entire Taste Radio team, thanks again for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.
