[00:00:10] Ray Latif: Hello, and thanks for tuning in to Taste Radio, the number one podcast for the food and beverage industry. I'm Ray Latif, the editor and producer of Taste Radio, and with my episode co-hosts, John Craven, Jacqui Brugliera, and Mike Schneider. In this episode, we feature the second edition of Special Ops with Andrew Guard, in which the operations expert offers guidance on timely issues affecting food and beverage entrepreneurs. Just a reminder, if you like what you hear on Taste Radio, please share the podcast with friends and colleagues. And of course, we would love it if you could review us on the Apple Podcasts app or your listening platform of choice. Jackie in freezing cold San Diego is wearing a parka.
[00:00:56] John Craven: Yes, a bitter 60 degrees this morning. 60 degrees.
[00:01:01] Ray Latif: The horror. And yeah, is it that cold? Don't you guys have heat in the office?
[00:01:07] John Craven: It's just getting kicked in. You know it's a little bit early here for me at 8 in the morning, so I'll be warm in 30 minutes.
[00:01:14] Ray Latif: Yeah, we do record slightly early for the West Coast, but it's all worth it, right? It is. You know, if you if you could choose between recording at 11 a.m. being here in Boston or at 8 a.m. being in that awful place, San Diego, no brainer, right?
[00:01:34] John Craven: Yeah. I mean, location is key. But yeah, I would prefer a.m. roll out of bed, you know, get to it right away, right away.
[00:01:42] Jacqui Brugliera: you know, get your surfing, get a running, get centered before I get on the podcast.
[00:01:52] Ray Latif: I'm glad you I'm glad you followed up on that Jackie, because it sounded like you just rolled out of bed and just got on the mics and you're like, another episode of Taste Radio. Just sleeping at the office, Jackie, right?
[00:02:03] John Craven: There are a few things that go on in between waking up and being here.
[00:02:06] Ray Latif: I would assume, yes. Well, maybe, maybe you're just tired from all the excitement from Sunday's big game, the World Cup final, which was won by Argentina. Pretty much regarded as the best final in World Cup history and just an epic game through and through. Jackie, did you watch that?
[00:02:25] John Craven: Yeah, it was unreal. I was jumping up and down. And I will say I'm not a huge soccer fan, as some people here, but it was so exciting. And yeah, it was just down to the wire, obviously, with penalty kicks, but it was so, so good.
[00:02:41] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, it had something for the soccer is boring people for about, you know, for about 70 minutes in that game. There's some good drama building up before Mbappé decided to take over. That was pretty incredible game. John, did you watch that game? Well, it's a World Cup, right? Oh, come on.
[00:03:02] Mike Schneider: I haven't watched it. I just, again, I just don't choose to be like an Argentina fan, you know, which is probably what, I don't know, you and Mike did, right?
[00:03:14] Jacqui Brugliera: neutral to slightly France. I don't know why, probably because- Ray wanted France to win because this settled the whole argument about who's the greatest player of all time. And Ray definitely wanted that to be Cristiano Ronaldo. And guess what?
[00:03:27] SPEAKER_??: It isn't.
[00:03:28] Jacqui Brugliera: That's not, that's not why.
[00:03:30] Ray Latif: I think it's, it's more that I like Mbappe a lot. And I think he really represents the next generation of like soccer stars. He is, I mean, he is probably the best player in the world right now as it is. But there was something about this French team, I think, that was about perseverance. They, you know, three of their best players couldn't play in the tournament. You know, they had a virus that ran through the team the last few days before the World Cup. So for them to even like get into the position that they were in and almost win the game in extra time and becoming extremely close was pretty impressive. But Congratulations to Argentina, to Lionel Messi, to our colleague, Martín Caballero, who is a huge Argentina fan, as well as our former colleague, Neil Martinez Belkin. And actually, that's how we met Marty. Neil and Marty had bonded over the fact that they both were of Argentinian descent. And that's how we got to know Marty, because he and Neil were friends. And he was like, hey, there's this opening at a company called BevNET. That's all she wrote. Thank goodness for football. Now, I will fully admit I was scrolling through Twitter throughout the game. I think there was like just an insane number of tweets throughout the World Cup final. Reading all the tweets about Varane. I think Mr. Musk at one point tweeted that when France scored their second goal, this insane goal by Mbappe, there were like 22,000 tweets per second on Twitter, which is pretty nuts. However, Twitter is in turmoil. I don't think that there's any other way to say it. And I have definitely pulled back on my Twitter usage. And it feels like it's something where, I don't know, it's just, it's just such a weird platform now.
[00:05:16] Jacqui Brugliera: Are you guys feeling the same way? Yeah, when CEO owner is polling people to see if he should step away and he loses on his own platform. I mean, that's, that's
[00:05:28] Mike Schneider: I don't know, you just got to tune it out. There's still some good quality CPG discussion on there.
[00:05:34] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, I think that's the good part of Twitter is everybody doesn't see the dumpster fire that's happening right now because it's so well curated that if you're on it for soccer and you've been on it for soccer for years, you just see the regular soccer talk happening.
[00:05:48] Mike Schneider: Well, no, you definitely see the dumpster fire too. I mean, it is what it is, you know, like any social media platforms always had a dumpster fire somewhere. But like I was saying, I think every social media platform has some form of a dumpster fire going on on it somewhere at all times. And there was a stretch where that was all on LinkedIn, you know, I mean, different kind of dumpster fire. But I mean, I think it's, you're gonna throw in the towel on, you know, communicating with a valuable community because of the noise around it. Like, I don't know, you should probably just live in a bubble inside your house, right? Yeah.
[00:06:27] Jacqui Brugliera: Sometimes I do live in a bubble inside my house, true story, but anyway. I've been doing social media since the early days of social media, so the dumpster fire just feels normal to me now, I guess. So I was talking about the dumpster fire on top of the dumpster fire, which is the Elon Musk, it's really the circus on top of the dumpster fire, which is Elon Musk, just, just there responding to everyday people all the time, randomly, it's just strange and changing left and right.
[00:06:53] Mike Schneider: Yeah, I mean, it's this one seems a little more like a sad dumpster fire, especially for everyone. Well, no, I mean, it's just a weird one. And like, obviously, you know, Twitter was not exactly, you know, just making it rain profits or whatever. But You know, people worked on that. I mean, that was the company that people were passionate about, and, you know, kind of got shown the door. And now it's just like, you know, willy nilly, like, I mean, there was the I don't know if you guys saw like, the policy that they introduced over the weekend, it was like, you know, mentions of other social media platforms. That's crazy. Or like cause for getting your account suspended, a la even little things like, hey, follow me on Instagram at whatever your thing is.
[00:07:37] Jacqui Brugliera: The thing about Twitter is that it's a, it has been the dominant social media platform for so long and it's usually, you know, that's where people do everything and have that stuff. Some of that stuff is just automated. So you could get suspended for doing something that you were totally allowed to do 10 minutes earlier. So weird.
[00:07:56] John Craven: Yeah, and I feel like on Twitter, I'm not an avid user. So just jumping in with any new platform or thing that you don't use often, it can be chaotic unless you have a specific goal or you know what community you're trying to talk to on that platform, or else it's just chaos.
[00:08:12] Ray Latif: Well, I'm curious about the platform that people seem to be jumping to, or at least a handful of people seem to be jumping to. Is it Mastodon? Is that the one? Yeah, I haven't, I'm not on that. I'd be curious to find out if listeners are experimenting with Mastodon and how well it's going if they're getting that kind of interaction that they get with Twitter, at least, you know, a fraction of that.
[00:08:33] Mike Schneider: I was gonna say definitely, definitely not. I mean, there's post news is another one that people are plugging. And there's a couple of startups. I mean, none of those are gonna like take overnight short of Twitter literally shutting down.
[00:08:47] Ray Latif: Now the social platform I use most often is LinkedIn. And so when I wanted to pose a question to our community about their expectations for challenges and opportunities for 2023, I thought LinkedIn would be the best place to ask that. So in a recent post, I did just that. I said, what are your company's biggest challenges and greatest opportunities going into 2023? The Taste Radio team would love to hear from you. John Craven, You know, this is something that always comes up at the end of the year. You know, what are you looking forward to? You know, what are you most concerned about going into 2023? You know, what are your thoughts?
[00:09:24] Mike Schneider: Yeah, I read your your LinkedIn post and a lot of the replies. And, you know, I think this is sort of the kind of expected stuff, which is things have changed and there's uncertainty. And, you know, I think That gets a lot of people wanting to be economists and talking about these macro things and how they're going to impact fundraising and fundraising is real hard and this and that. Again, fundraising is going to be different. That's just the way I would summarize all of that stuff and we've talked about things being cyclical and this not being the first time the rules of the game have changed. And I think the companies that will probably feel the pinch most or the ones that don't adapt or maybe raise the too high of a valuation in their last round. When things soften, they can't raise the same valuation and that will, in any market, cause problems. Clearly, I think it's just the uncertainty. We're going into another year where no one's super certain what is going to happen. biggest thing I took away. The only last thing I'd say is just that a lot of times, the periods of uncertainty are the ones that also have the most opportunity. If we're just chugging along and everything's kind of like, all right, it is harder for new ideas to find a foot in the door. And I think we talked about this on another episode of Taste Radio. But I mean, there were a lot of big brands born out of the 2008-2009 recession. And again, I think those are the brands that found that opportunity. So I expect that that's the way this will go as well. But of course, no one really has a crystal ball. We're all in this together here. So we'll see.
[00:11:26] Ray Latif: Yeah, one of the things that a bunch of folks noted on that thread is that there is a bunch of uncertainty. However, there is opportunity in standing out from the competition via functionality, flavor development. This is all based on, however, supply chain stability. And so I think there is some mixed feelings about that as well. Some stabilization of supply chains and some concerns about where ingredients are coming from and where they're not coming from anymore as well. You know, interesting to hear from the variety of folks that responded investors, operators, consultants, service suppliers and providers as well, you know, from the, from a brand side, I think, and I've mentioned this a few times on the, on the podcast. I do hear a lot from founders and entrepreneurs about, you know, concerns about hiring the right folks as well. You know, they're looking for experienced folks, particularly on the operations side, to help them scale, yet are also looking for cultural fits. And sometimes those things are incongruent. You know, someone who's just A hardcore operator who's been in the business for, you know, a decade may not be of the same mindset or lifestyle of, say, an early stage entrepreneur.
[00:12:42] John Craven: Yeah, I think also in the new year, it just gives the opportunity for brands just be more intentional with all their decisions, whether it's a money decision, it's a hiring decision to really go deep and tap into their loyal consumer base and test new things online and do things that they've always been doing, but just be a little bit more intentional and dive into the things they know are working. And then, you know, be calculated in any changes or things that they're doing that's new.
[00:13:14] Ray Latif: All good points. And again, you know, thank you to everyone who's responded to that LinkedIn post and would love to hear from more folks as well. So please respond if you have an answer, if you have any thoughts on the subject, and we would really appreciate it. Also great to connect with folks on LinkedIn via their DM feature. This is how I met a fine gentleman named Ed Wooten, who is the founder of a brand called VUDU. Now, Voodoo is a maker of immunity hydration stick packs. Ed and his team recently sent us a few of their stick packs. The one I'm holding in my hand is their green tea lemonade variety. There are 10 sticks per box. You're supposed to mix each stick with 16 ounces of water, which I'm going to do right now. Now, immunity hydration and these stick packs and these powder packs, we're seeing a lot more of these come to market. And I feel like the biggest difference between the ones that I like and the ones that I don't particularly love is taste. Because they all offer a pretty similar functionality, right? So if I want to drink something, I want it to taste good. And as we all know, you can't get away with bad taste anymore, regardless of function. So as I mix this in my glass, I'm going to find out and let Ed know firsthand what I think of his beverage. You know what the great thing about this is that it actually has the tartness of lemonade that you expect from like a fresh lemonade, but in a powder stick format, which is pretty hard to achieve. And I love the fact that it does have an immunity function tied to this hydration function as well. So really impressed with this. Well done, Ed and Voodoo.
[00:14:59] Mike Schneider: I just got this... Well, there's two of them. It's called Mixed Roots from a company called Freshly, which is a company that, well, prior to this, just made super tasty, ready-to-drink cocktails. The company is based in Georgia. But this is a jar with a bunch of real ingredients. I mean, this one's got It's the El Viejo fashioned, and it's got orange, cherry, clove, cardamom, juniper berries, allspice, and cinnamon organic sugar. And you add booze to this and infuse it to, I suppose, make what is eventually a ready-to-drink cocktail. And then the other thing I've got here, man, this looks like a can of cat food when you take the box away.
[00:15:45] Jacqui Brugliera: That is the best stuff. That is incredible stuff.
[00:15:47] Mike Schneider: Yeah, Mike knows, oh yeah, he's going to go get the box here for better, but it's the fish people and Flyby Jing. Oh, you got it upside down there. Yeah. How'd you get your hands on that? Sorry, Fishwife, excuse me, and Flyby Jing. What's that?
[00:16:02] Ray Latif: I thought that was sold out.
[00:16:03] Mike Schneider: How'd you get your hands on that? I don't know. I stole it from the photo queue. I mean, they only need the box. They're not going to take a picture of the can, right? But yeah, this stuff is, well, I already have one of these. This is my second one, but it's super tasty. It's like Fly By Jing infused salmon. So delicious. Really tasty stuff.
[00:16:26] Ray Latif: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You guys are always asking me to share. And yet you've already had one tin.
[00:16:32] Jacqui Brugliera: He's having another. When we're done recording, come over to the office. We're in the office, right? You can just tackle the table.
[00:16:41] Mike Schneider: I have no hope over here. We also have an office visitor today that you might want to come see. So just say it. I am coming. We have our secret Santa thing.
[00:16:53] Ray Latif: We'll have some fish.
[00:16:55] John Craven: Open up some cans.
[00:16:56] Ray Latif: Now, I saw this product in the office the other day at a peak of my interest. It's called Yate, Y-A-T-E. It's an organic sparkling yerba mate beverage. It comes in a 8.4 ounce can. I wouldn't necessarily call it a slim can. I guess it is a slim can. I mean, I like seeing more of these products come to market, and I actually really love this size can for a yerba mate beverage, because some of the big 16 ounce products are just too much to drink in one sitting. That's a lot of yerba mate, man. Yeah, so 8.4 ounces seems like a good amount. And I also like the name Yachty. There's something very nice about sort of shortening that Yerba Mate and just calling it Yachty.
[00:17:34] Jacqui Brugliera: I like that. Whenever I even look at Yerba Mate, I just think of Miley Cruz on Kickstart, my heart. It's just, that stuff is powerful. Wait, what? Now you're really dating yourself. No problem, I do it every day.
[00:17:52] John Craven: I've had my eye on Van Leeuwen just released a limited edition ice cream in partnership with, yeah. In partnership with Glass Onion, a Knives Out Mystery, which is a movie. I saw the previous Knives Out movie. Big fan. Excited to see this one. That's a great movie. So this is one reason I want to try this, but I also love onion. So the fact that they are incorporating caramelized onion into their ice cream, I'm very curious about. So they are making it available online and at their locations in New York City and LA. So I'm definitely going to have to grab one online. excited to try that. And it's cool to see just more collaborations with movies that are being released. I know there's been like collabs in the CPG space with a lot of Disney movies. It's cool to see, you know, just more opportunities for collaboration.
[00:18:45] Ray Latif: Definitely. Now, a social platform I didn't mention earlier in the show is Instagram. Everyone uses Instagram, right? And I connected with a founder whose name is Benjamin Bacon, who is the founder of a brand called Lentiful. Lentiful makes these instant lentils that come, what do they call these? How would you describe this type of package? The ice cream container. Yeah, it's like an ice cream cup. This one is two ounces, or at least it has two ounces of product. You add water to this cup that has lentils in it. You close it up, you put it in the microwave, and you're good to go. Or you can pour boiling water on it, and you have your instant lentil meal. This is their Thai coconut variety. It has 12 grams of protein, six grams of fiber, and 210 calories. This is the ultimate lunch on the go. Really well done, Ben, and thank you so much for sending this product, because I could eat these all day.
[00:19:41] Jacqui Brugliera: I mean, I think if your goal is to own the lentil space, that's a good start. Yeah. Definitely clear that it is a lentil product.
[00:19:49] Ray Latif: Indeed. Alright, it's time to get to our featured interview for this episode. As I mentioned at the top of the show, we're once again joined by Andrew Guard, the founder Right Coast Brands, a beverage co-manufacturer that provides companies with retail-ready finished goods on a nanoscale. In the following conversation, Andrew explained what founders need to know about working with functional ingredients and considerations for introducing a new package type. All right, we're back at it with Andrew Guard in the second edition of Special Ops.
[00:20:29] Special Ops: With Andrew Guard. Andrew, good to see you. Hey, Ray, happy to be back. This is a quick little drive over from Framingham, so not too hard. No, not at all. Happy holidays. Oh, happy holidays as well.
[00:20:38] Ray Latif: Yeah.
[00:20:38] Special Ops: I didn't even realize, you know, having two young boys, I had no idea that this was upon us with our countdown clocks galore in our house.
[00:20:45] Ray Latif: You're not buying a lot of presents for the families? Is this what it is?
[00:20:48] Special Ops: Well, I'm assuming my oldest son will not be listening to this, but we've been utilizing my office as the receiving ground for all of Santa's workshop output. So actually my wife is there right now Organizing everything and get everything ready for the holidays. So you guys are on top of everything here. Oh, I don't know about that, but trying our best not to Ruin the the fun for our little sleuth of a son, you know It's funny that you that you mentioned that because I remember when I was growing up
[00:21:18] Ray Latif: You would always, as a child, look for the presents all over your house. You would go into closets, you'd go into the bed, wherever you could try to find them. Which, I don't know, looking back on that now, wasn't it more fun being surprised than finding out like a week before?
[00:21:31] Special Ops: A hundred percent. Yeah. And my trick was not necessarily looking for the presents because I respected that they were hidden somewhere or not in the house, but I knew where my dad kept his receipts. And he was very specific about the detail in his receipts. And I knew where he kept them. So I would just go and read the receipts and go through my mental checklist of like, oh, got that. All right, got that. I'm good. So I didn't have to go see the physical presents, but I did snoop around and I know my dad, who will listen to this, is gonna not be pleased with me, but I'm pretty sure I've told him that already.
[00:22:05] Ray Latif: This is brilliant, by the way. I mean, I don't think I've ever heard of something like this before. It's fantastic.
[00:22:13] Special Ops: how I made sure I was taking a full accounting of what I was asking for and potentially receiving. Leading into your career in so many ways.
[00:22:21] Ray Latif: I guess so, yes. It's funny how that works. Speaking of your career, Rightcoast Brands, open now. You're into month three, I believe, of the facility. Once again, just a reminder to folks, Rightcoast Brands is
[00:22:35] Special Ops: Red Coast Brands is a business I started in the spring, but we've, you know, kind of essentially opened our doors quietly about three and a half, three months ago, where we essentially act as a solution center for the beverage industry. So if you're looking to create products, you know, to get in front of buyers, to get in front of retailers, distributors, we can do that on a super small scale for you. Something that's full retail ready, whether it's, you know, glass, plastic cans, we kind of can do it all. Our typical kind of run size right now is you know, down to like a five gallon pail of stuff that we can run through our actual filling line. So that's been exciting. And, you know, we kind of been testing and learning a lot, you know, this year, so we can officially quote unquote launch in January and be truly open to kind of be able to tackle whatever comes our way. So that's, it's, it's been exciting.
[00:23:24] Ray Latif: Well, as you know, from your days way back working for BevNets and throughout your career, functionality is always top of mind in our industry, food and beverage that is. The challenge though, is actually incorporating functional ingredients into a beverage or food. Sure. It's not like you can just stick ashwagandha into a brownie and say, here's an ashwagandha brownie.
[00:23:50] Special Ops: Well, you can. Is it a good idea? I would probably disagree. Yeah.
[00:23:56] Ray Latif: That's what I want to talk about is, you know, a lot of founders will come up to us and say, hey, can you try my product? It has this particular function, that particular function, this ingredient, that ingredient. And oftentimes there's something off either with the flavor, the sweetener, the bite of the functional ingredient. And I'd love to hear from you on sort of best practices or considerations for incorporating functional ingredients into a food or beverage. Now, and I know that's a broad topic because there's a lot of different functional ingredients. There's a lot of different sweetener systems, a lot of flavor systems and how they all work together. But in general, you know, what are some of the best practices?
[00:24:38] Special Ops: Yeah, so functionality has always been kind of like a key factor in driving innovation in this industry. So, you know, whether it was Gatorade and things like sports drinks or other hydration brands, there's still an evolution with that kind of trend. It's not as easy today to find something as, you know, kind of you know, water-soluble and straightforward as a variety of salts or electrolytes. Which is the typical functional ingredient in sports drinks. Yeah, yeah. So essentially what you, your body sweats out, you want to be able to replenish more quickly than your body, you know, regenerating itself. So the evolution of that, and I'd say kind of partnered with a greater level of personal wellness. whether that's because of the internet age or the ability to discover more about unique things, has led to this desire to marry function and consumption, you know, and in our industry, in a beverage form, a way to bring something new and unique and innovative to this industry. So some things work really, really well in terms of plop it into what you're used to consuming and it doesn't change anything. But for the most part, A lot of components aren't water-soluble, so how do you solve for that? There's bitterness factors, there's off-putting flavors, there's a reason why a lot of adaptogens, nootropics, as they're called now, exist in capsule or pill forms, right? Because you kind of just gulp it down and it's not something you have to worry about. The taste and experience perspective of it, it's more about just getting the functionality inside of you. It's not as easy as taking that capsule and then putting it in 12 ounces of liquid. You know, you have to figure out what's gonna make this something that somebody's gonna want on a repeatable scale. How can they put this in, like, instill this in part of their life and their daily habit? And is it something that they can have multiple times a day? I mean, we can use caffeine as a catch-all example of... of how you have to incorporate its inherent nature in its usage, right? Caffeine is quantifiable in terms of, I'd say, a general understanding of what some milligrams of caffeine do, right? It's an actual versus perceived efficacy. Yes, yes. Well, or even just the comparison of, you see a lot of on-package marketability around caffeine has equivalence to cups of coffee. I think that's a good general level of understanding for people is that, all right, it's equivalent to one cup of coffee or a quarter of a cup of coffee, things like that. So there is a variable level of, I'd say, acceptability or desire when it comes to caffeine content. Now, to your question, the more caffeine you pump into something, the more you have to then work with its downside, which is this extreme bitterness. And there's a bunch of different ways to go about that. But essentially, the more you put in of the deterring factor, the more you then have to put in to deal with that. And that's not necessarily more juice or more sugar, because You can't, well, I say in the glory days made of energy drinks, you were able to have 300 milligrams of caffeine and you'd have, the drink would be 350, 360 calories in a 12 ounce can. That's no longer acceptable. You know, it's still, those products still exist, but definitely the shift is going to this zero sugar trend. And I think a lot of bigger energy brands have done a great job of making zero energy drinks taste good while delivering a lot of functionality. But that doesn't say, I mean, there's a lot of science and a lot of nuance that goes into that. And not so much on a sweetness profile, but if you're gonna go down the zero sugar route, there is conflicting feelings around the use of stevia or monk fruit or erythritol or sucralose or Ace K or all of these different things, right? Some combinations of stuff taste better and definitely emulate sugar in a different way. all lack mouthfeel. You know, when you're putting a lot of sugar in a drink, you're essentially creating a simple syrup that has a tackiness, viscosity to it. That is a really, really important part of a lot of different beverages and something that is very tricky to do consistently and repeat in the same way without using sugar. The other component of all this is retailer expectations and demands. If you use Whole Foods as an example, you know, the Whole Foods, like, no-no list is kind of like a prerequisite for any development work that, you know, we typically look at, and we have to take that all into account, right? So immediately sucralose is out the window, ACE-K is out the window, you know, things like stevia, monk fruit are totally fine, sugar is fine, but... Allulose is not. Allulose is not. So that's a conundrum. Yeah. Also the sugar piece. So your point about ashwagandha brownies, You cannot add just functionality to whatever you'd like, right? Like, you can't have — I'll use an example that's close to home — you can't have probiotic brownies. Because you're inherently trying to take something that is an indulgence, is a treat, is meant to be essentially consumed in some level of moderation, and throw some functionality into it and say, look, it's a functional brownie. So if you're doing this with a soda product, you can't just say, hey, we're going to put a bunch of probiotics in this sugary drink. And it goes for iced teas, goes for a lot of different things. You have to find ways to reinvent what you've created to deliver on mouthfeel, taste, refreshment. functionality, all these different things. So it's a revolving wheel and retailers' expectations play a huge part in that as well too. Because if you are going to be limiting yourself to only 50% of your ability to grow your business or brand, that's not essentially a really good way to go about it. And whether it's right or wrong or silly or whatever, it doesn't matter. I mean, you still have to be able to navigate what's in front of you. And that's definitely one of the bigger challenges.
[00:30:50] Ray Latif: So brass tacks, people have got to be flexible and realistic about their options when it comes to incorporating functional ingredients into their products. And not only flexible, but really thinking about the broad opportunity in all channels of retail.
[00:31:09] Special Ops: Yes. I mean, I think the best way to go about this, and this is probably a little bit of trade secret, but the best way to go about this is take your functional components, whatever they may be, or a collection of things that is kind of your unique functional traits and how you wanna deliver a satisfying consumption experience, whether it's still feeling sweet and emulates a soft drink or something sugary like an iced tea, or you want it to be like an enhanced water where you're essentially getting back to like a neutral baseline. If you take your core components and create what is essentially proprietary to you and what you wanna bring to market, Get that right. Don't worry about flavor. Don't worry about juice. Don't worry about the specific things. Get like your suite of your nutritional functional blend right. And get it to as baseline as possible, like neutral tasting, you know, whatever you are trying to achieve, get that to like a baseline and then go from there. Then start applying that to different ways of delivering this on a you know, repeatability, refreshment, consumption perspective. Like, how do you take this and then amplify it through flavor, through, you know, juice content, through whatever you want the kind of beverage mechanism to be? And then you have something that's repeatable and scalable. Whereas you're not chasing a certain function, it's always married to a certain flavor. Like, what if I don't like Mandarin, but I want energy? I don't want, like, blueberry and Nashviganda. You know, like, I think you get tied up into trying to capture all of these different need states. And the best way to do that, or the most streamlined way to do that is to tie it to one of your SKUs, right? That doesn't really tend to work that well. I don't really know of any brands that have delivered on that, like single function, single flavor, and then a portfolio of functionality. That just doesn't really work that way. So I think look at brands that have had success in taking something functional and building it out to be extremely mainstream and look how like their model exists and how they tested and learned quickly to have something that's repeatable and scalable and delicious.
[00:33:22] Ray Latif: My guess is that there are folks coming to you with the problem of, Hey, I don't want to be in plastic anymore. I'd love to be in cans, or can you move me into glass? And this is something I hear a lot from founders is they're done with plastic. Yep. Or. they need to move into a plastic because they're getting too much breakage with glass. Switching pack types, you know, what are some of the challenges around doing that?
[00:33:46] Special Ops: Sure. So a lot of different package types interact with the liquid inside them in, you know, very direct or very indirect ways. So it's not an A to B movement most times. Cans is a good example. So cans have two types of liners in them depending on where you sell your products and Depending on your ingredients and even specifically functional ingredients They eat away at the liners and eat away at the cans And I'm sure a lot of people listening to this have had leaking cans and exploding cans floating cats a different issue Well the ones that explode at the bottom because they get that I mean is corrosion is that my making that up? Oh, yeah, it's a different thing. Okay, that's a that's a bacterial problems. Yeah, I The leaking cans are, you kind of can't tell there's an issue until they're leaking through your cases, through the pallet, on the floor, and you've had fruit flies and all that fun stuff. So, corrosivity testing is really important. So, making sure once you know where your liquid is from a taste profile and an efficacy standpoint, really understanding like, all right, so what does this liquid do to the stuff? And what is my shelf life? What challenges or risks do I have? And there's different types of liners you can use for different types of products, and you can solve all those problems, but it's better to be ahead of them than behind them. So if you're going from glass, which is relatively benign, to cans, you really have to understand what the impact of that is, right? Plastic, there's definitely giant concerns around leaching from the plastic over a period of time. That is the chemicals from the plastic getting into your beverage. Right, right. And tons of different things impact that and how quickly that onset may be or whatever. But I would say in general, we're seeing a lot of push away from using plastics. You know, from an entrepreneurial emerging brand standpoint, it's not something that I see much of at all anymore. I would say only in products that are, I would say, hyper Gym focused or you know somewhere where glass can be challenging or cans don't make sense because you want to be able to close it although I think aluminum bottles are Creeping into that space a little bit, but they're just still so expensive Finding the right form factor like the package type is essential to the product. I mean cans are ubiquitous in size There's kind of essentially three options, you know to the average consumer in their mindset, three options that you can kind of go with. PET, like plastic bottles, there's, I would say some generic or stock molds that exist, and they've probably been kind of owned by very specific brands at this point. And glass kind of follows a similar suit as well, too. So if you want to do something custom, If you don't want to have the silhouette of a can because there's a lot of brands coming to market in cans, you don't want to do plastic just because of potential backlash or whatever it may be in terms of your ecological footprint and its usage with that, but you want to do something cool, well, good luck finding glass that can check all the boxes that, you know, isn't going to be stuck on a container or you don't have to find some guy to pick up in Poland and then bring to the Black Sea to then bring to New York. And then like half the containers damaged. And that's the stuff you deal with the class. And it's heavy and it's it's. This is not a made up story. These are like real scenario, actually. Was that too specific?
[00:37:32] Ray Latif: No, it sounded very real.
[00:37:33] Special Ops: Yes.
[00:37:33] Ray Latif: No, well, that's just yeah.
[00:37:34] Special Ops: I'm not speaking from experience. That being said, I do think—I bring this up because there's a lot of discussion, you know, internally at our office about glass and cans and what makes sense. And, you know, a lot of things are cyclical, right? I really think that there's a solution to being able to have a repeatable, reliable glass supply. we'll start seeing more brands launch in glass, just because cans are, that's been owned. You know, there's a lot of brands that are out there in cans already. So trying to solve for that is something that we're working on as well too.
[00:38:12] Ray Latif: So at the end of the day, when you're talking about the opportunity to move into cans, for example, the considerations that you're talking about are A, does the formulation make any sense for this particular pack type? And then B, Is it going to appeal to the consumer? And I'm sure people have done their research on whether or not, you know, their consumers, their customers are looking for that type of package or not. But which is more important, really? I mean, you know, from your experience, is it more important to address the consumer need or is it more important to just get the right pack type for the formulation that you're creating?
[00:38:48] Special Ops: Everything that we do is from the consumer backwards. So, when we talk about solving problems, they're problems that are inhibiting the consumer getting your products, finding your products, or engaging with your products in the right way. And consumers can be a retail consumer, like anyone buying something at a store, or a buyer for a retailer account, or a decision maker at a distributor, somebody who can help add revenue to your business. So, we like to look at things from the consumer backwards, always. So regardless of formulation, functionality, you know, how miraculous your product could be to someone's betterment, if they can't engage with it to maximize that, it doesn't matter. So what's the right package type for that usage occasion? I mean, that's the most important thing. Are you delivering what they're expecting in a way that they can maximize its functionality? That's how I approach everything and how we look at all the projects that we do. Not that it's going backwards. I think it's going the right way. You have to look at the industry and the market and where's their white space? These are things that everyone talks about all the time in launching brands and doing things. operations is the backbone of achieving all that stuff. So you have to create this scenario that you're emulating that experience. And then what are all the hurdles? What are all the challenges that get in the way of that? And that comes back down to the liquid. So not that you end there, but that's the last thing they're going to interact with, right? I mean, before their experience with your brand is done, it's everything in front of that. So how do you get through all that stuff first to make that as seamless of a path to consumption as possible? And usage is extremely important in that factor. So sports drinks in plastic make tons of sense because they're on gym floors or in your gym bag, or it's a 28 or 32 ounce bottle or something. That's not, you don't just gulp it down, right? There's, there's maybe, maybe you do, but there's the expectation that it's, can be consumed over a period of time. So how do you have that be resealable, transportable? That goes for any type of functionality. How are you gonna deliver what you've created in a way that's useful? I know I've kind of said that several times, but it's a fundamental question that you have to ask over and over again. What's getting in the way of somebody getting this product, believing in this product, and having it become a realistic part of their routine of their day or whatever your expectation is of their interaction with what you're creating. I think that's the most important thing.
[00:41:43] Ray Latif: A seamless path to consumption. Yes. I like the way you put that. And I think that's something that people really need to consider and think about is how can I make this as easy as possible for someone to buy and consume and buy again?
[00:41:57] Special Ops: Right. And price is a big part of that too. Sure. If you're an emerging brand and you have a quote-unquote expensive drink, just because of a million factors, right? I also think you should look at pricing your products in a way that removes that barrier. That shouldn't be the consumer's burden. And you have to plan your business accordingly to manage that. So price aside, I think figuring out the right way to get things in front of your buyers and in front of the consumers is key. So if you have an expensive product, maybe putting it in a four pack or an eight pack doesn't make sense because it's going to cost 14 bucks. Like that's not a real easy way to get somebody to try something. And dollars aside, like what if they don't want four of them because they don't know. So how do you remove, that's a barrier in a lot of ways. So how do you remove that or put that in the right lane, you know, after you like test and learn things? So things like that, 16 ounce cans versus 12 ounce cans, sleek cans versus standard cans. What's the perception that you're creating for your brand through these package types? And I'd say plastic, glass, different can sizes, all that stuff, all comes to play.
[00:43:12] Ray Latif: I feel like we could keep talking about this because there's a million more questions that are coming to mind as you're talking about these things, but we'll save that for Edition 3, 4, and 5. Sure. Because this has been fantastic as it is, and we're trying to give our audience a seamless path to consuming this media as well.
[00:43:30] Special Ops: You guys drag it on with your banter for so long. Could be a little bit more precise. There you go.
[00:43:35] Ray Latif: For folks who just jumped ahead of our banter to listen to Andrew, I don't blame you. No, no, no, I'm just kidding. We have fun across the board. But no, this has been fantastic, as expected. Thank you so much, Andrew, once again, for sharing your knowledge, experience, and advice with us. We'll see you back soon in the new year. Yeah, sounds good. Fantastic. Thank you again. All right, bye. That brings us to the end of this episode of Taste Radio. Thank you so much for listening, and thanks to our guest, Andrew Guard. As always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please send us an email to ask at Taste Radio.com. Our audio engineer for Taste Radio is Joe Cracci. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt, and our video editor is Ryan Galang. On behalf of the entire Taste Radio team, thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.
