[00:00:10] Ray Latif: Hello and thanks for tuning in to Taste Radio, the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food or beverage. I'm Ray Latif, the editor and producer of Taste Radio, and I'm with my co-host for this episode, John Craven and Mike Schneider. We're gearing up for Bevnet Live. Live LA and Nosh Live LA highlighting the retail buyers and investors, founders can meet through the event's 1 to 1 meetings. Plus we celebrate Sambazon's acquisition of Pattaya Foods. Congratulate founder Chuck Casano and his team on the milestone. We also sampled Jeti, the new hydration brand from Poppy co-founders Allison and Stephen Ellsworth, and explore what sets it apart. Mike, welcome back to Bevnet HQ, more specifically the Taste Radio studio.
[00:00:59] Speaker 2: Thanks, Ray. It's nice to hear Brad getting all fired up about, uh, you guys have him on for conspiracy theories, I guess. Uh, Jedi doesn't exist. You should have got him fired up about, uh, Russia and Finland
[00:01:09] Ray Latif: too. As we talked about last week, we never said Jedi didn't exist. We were just discussing this online chatter.
[00:01:17] Speaker 2: Present a conspiracy theory to Brad, and he will get you into the deep, dark corners of the internet, and he did a good job this time
[00:01:23] Ray Latif: too. Yes, well, as I mentioned, we got a lot of good feed really enjoyed listening to him, a lot of good feedback on the two episodes, most recent episodes with Brad Avery. I'm, I'm assuming we'll have him back on for more, but it's good to have you back alive and well. I know it was a rough spot for you, but you know, going from London to Las Vegas. Uh, yeah, that's, uh, that's a rough one, but you did it and you did it in the name of the company and for the betterment of Bevnet. So thank you for that, John. Uh, I already,
[00:01:50] Speaker 2: I'm, I'm basically a BevNET superhero.
[00:01:52] Ray Latif: John already gave you a raise of 2 bucks in a Snickers bar, so jeez.
[00:01:59] Speaker 3: I mean, which is better than the half Snickers bar he currently gets paid, but anyway, yeah, yeah.
[00:02:04] Ray Latif: Yeah, a lot to talk about today, but I want to talk about Nash Live and Bevnet Live because I am thrilled for the number of retail buyers and investors that will be at the events. Y'all heard us talk about the one to ones at Bevnet Live and Nash Live. The one to ones are private meetings with retail buyers and investors. In pre-scheduled 10-minute conversations that are focused on your business priorities. So basically, you come to Bevnet Live, you register for the one to ones, and you'll have an opportunity to sit down for 10 minutes in a structured environment with a retail buyer, an investor, both perhaps. It is a fantastic opportunity. It's not like you're spinning around looking for the retail buyers that are at the event or the investors that are at the event. You're there. You're going to meet them. You're going to have these opportunities.
[00:02:59] Speaker 2: I mean, it couldn't be easier. You make a request, we set it up. You have the meeting.
[00:03:03] Ray Latif: Yes, so folks that are going to be participating in these one to ones include George Espinoza, who is the senior category manager or a senior category manager at Sprouts. We got Samantha Fletcher, one of my favorite people on the planet, also a senior category merchant, but this retail chain is Whole Foods Market. Samantha works for Whole Foods. Sammy Kiefer is also from Whole Foods. She's a category merchant, as well as Candace Turnus from Whole Foods. We've got Hunter Ravia, who is the category manager for beer NA beer RTD. And THC for sprouts, Caleb Price, an assistant category manager for adult beverage, non-alk, and 4th category for Whole Foods, Valerie Martinez, the director of beverage for Sprouts, Director of beverage, yes, and Paige Fredrickson, who's a category merchant, the 4th category for Whole Foods Market, having trouble getting out all these names and all these retail chains because it's just So many of them. It's an epic cornucopia, right? Yeah. Founders and investors or founder investors include Mark Rampola, who is the founder of Ground Force Capital. He's also the founder of a small brand you might have heard of called Zico. Never heard of that one. Yeah, John Sebastiani, the founding partner of Sonoma Brands Capital, heard of it. I haven't seen him in a while. Yeah, yeah, he's gonna be there. And of course Darren Ravell, who is the founder of Tastemaker Capital. They've invested in some pretty awesome brands including Pop-Up Bagels, Vienna, Athletic Brewing, Athletic
[00:04:37] Speaker 3: Brewing. Don't forget that one.
[00:04:38] Ray Latif: I was going to say that incredible trio. That's why you got to look up, John, so you can see what I was about to say,
[00:04:43] Speaker 2: you know, that's an incredible trio of investors right there that you have the opportunity to meet. I mean.
[00:04:49] Ray Latif: Wow, yeah, exactly. Speaking of investors at Nash Live, we've got Jared Jacobs, the managing partner of Kavu Consumer Partners. Kavu, a small operation, small firm, uh, just the lead investor in Poppy, yeah. John Copsis, who's the vice president or a vice president at Kavu Consumer Partners. We've got Michael Kretz, a principal at Barrel Ventures, Jen Quinlan, a vice president for Encore Consumer Capital, many, many, many more folks that are looking to invest in. Emerging, high performing, quickly developing brands, and you can meet them 1 to 1 at Nosh Live in Bevnam. You asked for it,
[00:05:34] Speaker 2: you got it. We heard a lot of feedback that people wanted to meet investors at Nosh Live, so we got them.
[00:05:39] Ray Latif: We did indeed get them. Why not? So if you'd like to be at any of these events, I don't know why you wouldn't want to be at any of these events, head to CPGmedia.com/events to register. It's very, very easy. It is a decision you will not regret. My very first Bevnet Live is when I met the amazing, the incredible, the very, very kind and generous Chuck Cassano, who is the founder of Pattaya Foods. He is also the founder of a distribution company called High Touch Libations. Both are based in San Diego. And Chuck. has just completed a deal with Sambazan. Sambazan, one of the pioneers of the acai CPG food and beverage category. Amazon has agreed to acquire Pattaya Foods. This according to an article penned by our very own Adrian DeLuca. It's an exclusive story on Nosh.com. It's a deal that according to Adrian, will combine both teams and allow the businesses to tap a network of synergies from sourcing and manufacturing to sales and merchandizing. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. This is a deal that just seemed like a no-brainer. It almost It seemed like it was destined to happen. I mean,
[00:06:55] Speaker 3: if I told you that Asai and pitaya just came from the same tree, you'd probably believe it.
[00:07:00] Ray Latif: Uh, no, that's not true. And I should note that Sambazan, that'd be Brad that tells you that. Yes, yes, I, I think I noted that Sambazan was a pioneer, yes, in Asai. Dragon fruit, acaii, superfoods that have emerged, it's not necessarily mainstream, but pretty close to the mainstream at.
[00:07:16] Speaker 3: No, but it's, I mean, I, I, I just, obviously they don't come from the same tree, but I think it's sort of interesting in that both those products, especially when you're talking about like smoothie shops and some of their frozen products, the products do look pretty similar in terms of their purplish color, and they're kind of meant for almost the same use occasions, so it seems like obvious synergies there.
[00:07:40] Ray Latif: Yeah, I saw Chuck at our Taste Radio San Diego meetup in September and we talked about the development of pataya foods and how he has really helped educate the American public about the benefits of that superfood, that is pataya, and done so in a lot of different forms and formats. Pattaya food started out with a superfood drink. They since pivoted or they pivoted into food service products and then got into frozen foods with bagged pataya, and then cups of pattaya-based products as well. So, uh, once again, congratulations to Chuck and the team at Pattaya Foods. John Craven's got a, uh, crumpled up Whole Foods bag next to his knee there. What's in the bag, John? Uh,
[00:08:30] Speaker 3: these are Mike's personal effects. No, um,
[00:08:32] Ray Latif: oh boy,
[00:08:33] Speaker 3: that's terrible, uh. This is a little bag here with a beverage brand that I guess this is gonna be part 3 of our 3 week series. Jeez, Has it only been 3 weeks that we've been talking about Jetty? This is the 3rd straight week, yes, yeah, so I mean, stay tuned for weeks 4 and 5 coming up soon, I'm sure, but um, yeah, you know, it seemed like, uh, a lot of people just didn't want to wait around for the press kit. I'm one of those people, so I just had the old Amazon delivered from Whole Foods, but We've got the jetty, it really exists in fruit punch and orange mango flavors, right, which one would you like to
[00:09:11] Ray Latif: try? I'll try the fruit punch. OK,
[00:09:13] Speaker 3: here you go. Thank you. Would you like one, Mike? Sure, have a fruit punch or whatever I gave you.
[00:09:20] Speaker 2: My first taste of jetty, come on, come on, Jetty.
[00:09:24] Speaker 3: First of all, the knives are like out for this product on Twitter, which is really weird. It's really kind of crazy that there's so much chatter about this brand that doesn't even exist yet. Well, I mean, it exists now or didn't even exist yet, but I don't know. I got some snarky replies to posting this on Twitter, including like someone just saying, just tell me if it tastes better than Gatorade. That's all I want to know. I mean, it's not the same thing, so pretty decent tasting electrolyte beverage,
[00:09:52] Speaker 2: pretty decent tasting electrolyte beverage, and also. It's one of those things where if you evaluate a brand in isolation. It's going to be hard to see the vision for the brand. We got one flavor on a shelf somewhere and everyone jumped to conclusions that, you know, the branding is strange or whatnot, but if you look at the way they're executing now, the way they've launched it, you look at all the bottles next to each other, you can see what they're going for,
[00:10:18] Speaker 3: for sure, and I mean, I think clearly whether they like it or not. The founders of Jetty, Allison and Stephen Ellsworth. You know, I think it's sort of like people on the internet aren't exactly rooting for them, you know, they just had a big exit. I mean, I think that's sort of the challenge here,
[00:10:36] Speaker 2: which, I mean, people, let's say people on X, people
[00:10:39] Speaker 3: on, OK, people on X, you know, if
[00:10:41] Speaker 2: they're
[00:10:41] Speaker 3: even people, but, um, I'm definitely rooting for them. I like that they're getting back in the game as we've said in weeks 12, and 3 of our conversation about Jetty, but, um. No, I think this is, this is a pretty good effort, pretty good first couple of skews.
[00:10:55] Speaker 2: Also, if you look at effort 1.0 of mother beverage and you compare it to effort 1.0 of Jetty, it's obviously light years beyond that and I mean, it's got a lot of callouts. It's definitely a version 1.0, but it does a lot of things well that, you know, Jetty's. They're front and center, you know, it's an electrolyte beverage. You can, you know, read across the top and find out what electrolytes you're getting, and it's easy to tell what flavor it is, right?
[00:11:21] Speaker 3: And there's a couple more flavors. These are really the only two that the local Whole Foods had. But you know, seriously, to, uh, Steven and Allison, congrats on crossing the starting line on beverage journey number
[00:11:31] Speaker 2: 2. Fruit punch tastes like fruit punch. It's really good fruit punch. try it yet, Ray?
[00:11:35] Ray Latif: Yeah, uh, it's good. I think it's, uh, I it's a good tasting product.
[00:11:40] Speaker 2: I get Hawaiian punch vibes. I like it. Yeah, I missed that. You definitely couldn't get that for 45 calories in the
[00:11:46] Ray Latif: past. No, I mean, I like that they have approachable flavors. I like that they didn't go too esoteric with the flavors. I think that was something that body armor. Admitted, or at least Lance Collins, the founder of Body Armor, admitted early into the brand's development is that they were Coming out of the gate with flavors that just seems too strange. I think they had. A blackberry dragon fruit, in fact, and I guess that was back when dragon fruit wasn't as well known, but approachable flavors is the easiest way to get people to understand and try your products. So I, I like that. I'm also glad that they didn't come out with anything like a blue raspberry. Feels like not yet. No, I mean,
[00:12:28] Speaker 3: I feel like maybe we just didn't get that flavor.
[00:12:30] Ray Latif: I feel like
[00:12:31] Speaker 3: I don't know what all the skews are,
[00:12:32] Ray Latif: so I would think that the American public has probably hit their limit with these cloying and sweet flavors, but maybe not because I just keep seeing. Drink brands, especially energy drink brands, launch the most cloying and sweet flavors you can think of. Oftentimes, Collaborating with or licensing candy brands to do their bidding. So Skittles flavored energy drinks or Sour Patch Kid energy drinks, and I just wonder if there's much more runway for that stuff.
[00:13:08] Speaker 3: Seems like it.
[00:13:10] Speaker 2: Seems like the collaborations are just going to keep on coming, Ray. Also, when you say cloying, it feels a little bit cloying. I like it. Yeah, I get that feeling when you say it.
[00:13:20] Ray Latif: Well, no stain on a brand that I'm looking at right now. I have one in each hand. This is a brand called Barbells. Barbells, excuse me. Well, I thought it was bear belling. I thought I was doing some exercise. You're doing. That's probably why I called it, uh, barbells. 1 ounce curls. Yes, uh, Bearbells, the brand best known for their protein bars, is in the protein soda space. I think they've been, these products have been out for, I want to say at least a year. Our dear friend Olivier Colombo had these sent to the office because he knows that uh I've been less than enthusiastic about lots of protein sodas, all the protein sodas on the market. So these contain. 200 mg of caffeine and 10 g of protein per 12 ounce can. They come in these 12 ounce slim cans. They are naturally and artificially flavored. They're carbonated and sugar-free. So they have 50 calories per can.
[00:14:17] Speaker 2: I wasn't
[00:14:18] Ray Latif: here
[00:14:18] Speaker 2: during the episode where you talked about the aftermath of being, uh, cornered by feisty founder V Cutting, but I'm glad you survived.
[00:14:25] Ray Latif: I don't know if I was cornered, but she, she knows that, uh, I have been, like I said, less than enthusiastic about a lot of the protein sodas in the market, but I'm excited to try these. Uh, I mentioned flavors. This blue colored can is a sweet cherry.
[00:14:42] Speaker 2: Makes a lot of sense.
[00:14:43] Ray Latif: Sweet cherry, and the pink can is a wild strawberry. I think I'm going to start with a strawberry. I'll go with
[00:14:47] Speaker 2: the cherry then, and
[00:14:49] Ray Latif: you have one.
[00:14:49] Speaker 2: One of the things that I've got one in my head, Ray, I'm doing the same 12 ounce curls. I mean, you have to look up when you're talking.
[00:14:55] Ray Latif: Hm, instant reaction. These taste pretty good. The wild strawberry is actually very good.
[00:15:02] Speaker 2: Sweet cherry is not bad either. I guess for me, the thing I wonder is if there's too many variables here, because sweet cherry, 10 g of protein, and then now, and there's also 200 mg of caffeine in this can. That's quite a bit. Yeah, but 50 calories, 10 g of protein, 0 g of sugar, super sweet. It's not bad, it's one of the better ones I've tasted.
[00:15:24] Ray Latif: Yeah, I would say so. I think that's, there has been a kind of a low bar for that. Yeah,
[00:15:29] Speaker 2: it's just because it's difficult to, uh. To make the protein taste good, and this one's using clear whey protein isolate,
[00:15:36] Ray Latif: by
[00:15:36] Speaker 2: the way.
[00:15:36] Ray Latif: Yeah, oh, good stuff, thanks so much for sending Olivier Colombo.
[00:15:39] Speaker 2: Speaking of protein sodas, we also got a new flavor of proda, cranberry
[00:15:44] Ray Latif: cheer. Cranberry cheer, I assume that's a limited edition for the holiday flavor. You
[00:15:49] Speaker 3: assume, correct, yeah. You guys are talking about protein soda, all I can think about is this delicious. Taiwanese braised beef noodle soup from Omu, which, uh, Mike and I had the pleasure of sampling yesterday. That sounds like we shared a bowl of soup, but we didn't. We
[00:16:06] Speaker 2: each had our own box and. It's pretty crazy how fast you can whip up a bowl of insanely good Taiwanese braised beef noodle soup.
[00:16:17] Speaker 3: Yeah, it's kind of a giant box, but it's just got one. Really epic bowl of soup inside. It's got some noodles, some broth, uh, what were the other things? Pickled mustard greens,
[00:16:29] Speaker 2: I think. Pickled mustard greens and beef. I want to
[00:16:32] Speaker 3: try their other flavors.
[00:16:34] Ray Latif: They have more. What's the name of the brand? Omu. Omu. And how do you spell that? O M
[00:16:38] Speaker 2: U. Oh nice. This is definitely one of the best, uh,
[00:16:41] Speaker 3: CPG Napa Valley, California. I've tried in a long time, so you know it's good.
[00:16:44] Speaker 2: Nice. Everything about this tastes like, you know, you could have gotten this in a restaurant. If somebody just put this bowl in front of you, you might question the noodles are a little on the thin side compared to maybe something you get out of, you know, if you went to a Taiwanese restaurant, but they're good. They taste really good.
[00:17:05] Ray Latif: Ah, all right. John just opened up a bag of Rap City chips, but wrap is spelled W R A P. I don't know what
[00:17:14] Speaker 3: Rap City
[00:17:14] Ray Latif: is.
[00:17:15] Speaker 3: That's a little confusing. I'm like, is this a place where you go to get a wrap? We'll find out
[00:17:20] Ray Latif: what kind of chips are
[00:17:21] Speaker 3: these? Sour cream
[00:17:22] Ray Latif: and onion. Oh wow, looks like they're kettle cooked. Those are really
[00:17:25] Speaker 2: good. They're super thick,
[00:17:27] Speaker 3: artisanal, yeah,
[00:17:28] Speaker 2: artisanal, uh, a little maybe over baked, really nice chips. Thanks, Rap City.
[00:17:34] Speaker 3: Pretty sure these are fried, which is why they
[00:17:37] Speaker 2: taste so good. Oh yeah, that's why they taste so good. Those are fried chips. Also been uh enjoying this Zyn ZYN turmeric wellness drink. I've got mixed berry flavor and I just had mango lychee. Yeah, this stuff's pretty good. 10 calories, 2 g of sugar. No protein in this one though, Ray, just a good sparkling turmeric drink. Usually there's
[00:17:59] Ray Latif: at least 1 g.
[00:18:00] Speaker 2: Where is it sparkling? Hold on, I'm
[00:18:02] Speaker 3: gonna go to town on these chips.
[00:18:04] Speaker 2: I'm gonna open the mixed berry here. Not sparkling. It's really good. There's different flavors of it, and it's got, you know. A nice dose of turmeric for you. Nice vitamin C, zinc, and black pepper for absorption, for absorption. I really like the can here. I like, uh, the flavor callouts. I like, you know, that turmeric is, uh, the hero here. The only funny thing about it is upside down, it says turn me upside down, 1 x and enjoy. I assume that means before you open it.
[00:18:38] Ray Latif: I would hope so. That brings us to the end of this episode of Taste Radio. Thank you so much for listening. Taste Radio is a production of Bevnet.com Incorporated. Our audio engineer for Taste Radio is Joe Cratci. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt, and our video editor is Ryan Galang. Our social marketing manager is Amanda Smerlinsky, and our designer is Amanda Huang. Just a reminder, if you like what you hear on Taste Radio, please share the podcast with friends and colleagues. And of course, we would love it if you could review us on the Apple Podcast app or your listening platform of choice. Check us out on Instagram. Our handle is Bevnet TasteRadio. As always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please send us an email to ask@tastetradio.com. On behalf of the entire Taste Radio team, thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.
