[00:00:00] Jacqui Brugliera: More SKUs, more data, more complexity. New Beverage industry is changing fast. VIP helps suppliers, distributors, and retailers stay ahead, turning purpose-built beverage data and technology into smarter decisions and better results. For more than 50 years, VIP has helped power New Beverage industry. Now, they're building what's next. VIP, empowering smart decisions. Visit VIPinsights.com for more information.
[00:00:37] Ray Latif: Hello, dear friends, and thanks for tuning into Taste Radio, the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food New Beverage. I'm Ray Latif, the editor and producer of Taste Radio, and with my co-host for this episode, Jacqui Brugliera, Mike Schneider, and John Craven. How are your travels in Europe? Travels for good, you know, just, uh, went to that meetup thing, which is great. The London meetup you're referring to. Okay. Yeah.
[00:01:02] Mike Schneider: And then, uh, yeah, stuck around a little bit.
[00:01:04] Ray Latif: Yeah. The London meetup was like three weeks ago though. So you've been out of the picture for a while.
[00:01:08] Mike Schneider: I'm still buzzing from it. I got lost.
[00:01:10] Ray Latif: I'm still excited about the London meetup. That was fun. It was fun.
[00:01:13] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah.
[00:01:14] Ray Latif: Really good. Yeah. I would say it's, uh, left a lasting impression on us. I feel like we want to go back there more often than just once a year, at least me. I don't know. That's just me talking. I definitely want to go back to L.A. as soon as possible. It feels like the weather is finally taking a turn here in the Northeast, and it's getting colder. And the days are getting shorter. When it gets cold and dark, you just want to be anywhere else. But, well, wherever you are. And so LA is a good place to be, not just for your own mental health, but for the food New Beverage industry, to learn, to network, to be with the kind of people who are going to help you scale your business and live the dreams that you've always had, at least as an entrepreneur. And you can do those things at BevNET Live, Nosh Live, and Brewbound Live, which are all coming up very, very soon. Nosh Live is happening on December 4th and 5th, BevNET Live on the 7th, 8th and 9th and Brewbound Live on the 10th and 11th. And good news, really good news actually, because anyone who's listening right now can literally save $100 off the cost of a ticket to any of those events. If you just register today and today being Friday, October 24th, because today's the last day that you're going to be able to do so. If you want to save money, you can register today. If you don't want to save money, you can register on Monday. That's fine. You know, I mean, that's totally fine.
[00:02:43] John Craven: Who would want to do that?
[00:02:45] Ray Latif: You can even save a hundred dollars if you're not listening to this podcast right now. That's kind of a weird thing to think about. I feel like, uh, this is like a episode of, uh, with Stranger Things. We're just going to send it into people's minds. Yeah. I'm freaking out over here.
[00:02:58] John Craven: I mean, you get to save on a ticket. You also get to save on a hotel room because the room block is open, but it usually sells out. You can sign up early for one-to-one meetings for sampling. There's a lot already happening. So if you're not registered yet, you're kind of missing out.
[00:03:14] Ray Latif: Yeah, those one-to-ones are first in, first out. You get a first choice of who you want to meet with and first chance to get your schedule filled with one-to-ones. We should be clear about the value of the one-to-ones because you get FaceTime with retailers, investors, and entrepreneurs who have been there and done that. And you get to do it all in one place within a span of two days. Sometimes you could do everything in one day if you'd like. And where else can you say, meet an investor who has a track record of funding really innovative emerging businesses? where you can meet a retail buyer from Whole Foods, and you can meet someone who has scaled their business to $2,200 million. Really, legitimately, where else can you meet people like that in one place, in a single setting, in a specific period of time?
[00:04:07] John Craven: Yeah. I mean, there are great conversations happening in the hallway happening throughout the networking opportunities, but people have told us that it's great to just have that structured time to come in, have 10 minutes, be focused, know that you're both here, ready to talk business and bring your questions and set it up for future conversations.
[00:04:27] Ray Latif: Some people say, how do I do it all at BevNET Live? And we tell you, just be where you are, take advantage of the conversations that you're in. The place you're in is probably the right place to be. Ask all your hard questions and you're going to get answers and you're going to move your business forward. And if you're considering applying for BevNET's signature beverage brand competition, the New Beverage Showdown, hosted by Relatif, you have until October 31st. I mention the New Beverage Showdown because it is perhaps one of the best opportunities to gain awareness, insights, advice, feedback, and most importantly, feature your brand in front of an audience of some of the most important people in New Beverage industry. And even if you apply and say you don't necessarily make it, we know who you are. We have a better sense of who you are when you apply. You send us your information. You send us a short video about yourself and your brand. We'll find you in the crowd. And hopefully we'll see you on stage if you make the semifinals. But all I can say to New Beverage brand, early stage beverage brand or founder who's considering applying for the showdown, just do it. Just do it. Just apply. fill out the application, send us your short video, because we want to know more about your business. We are constantly surprised by the number of brands that we don't know about that apply for the showdown. And we're like, wow, where'd this brand come from? Where'd that brand come from? This is really cool. I love this concept. I love this idea. This founder is really awesome. So just let us know who you are. Reach out and apply for the showdown.
[00:06:02] John Craven: It's a great way to introduce yourself to us, to the industry. There's been so many brands that have done that.
[00:06:08] Jacqui Brugliera: I mean, HealthAid, Poppy, Liquid Death, they all introduced themselves to the industry on the BevNET Live stage.
[00:06:32] Ray Latif: Artificial intelligence is reshaping every corner of New Beverage industry. But where is it creating real value today? Stay tuned till the end of this episode for a bonus interview when I sit down with Andrew Krizis and Lucinda Awkwad of VIP to explore how AI is moving beyond analytics to automate decisions, improve efficiency, and transform the three-tier system. So I came across this really interesting online market. It's called Here Here Market. And basically it is a online marketplace that features emerging brands from all parts of the food New Beverage industry. And so I got a couple boxes of products from Here Here Market. Now these are specifically curated boxes for a specific type of occasion. This one is described as a charcuterie gift box. Now, let's start with this. This is not charcuterie. You're obviously this better than you can. All right, where's the meat and the cheese, Ray? Yes, this is from a brand called Unbothered Foods, and they make fermented sourdough products noted for, quote, for easy digestion. This is their rosemary and sea Share Crackers. This actually looks like a nice product that actually, I feel like you could see this in a lot of different places, but it's really, really focused on the fact that it's not going to mess with your gut. In fact, the bottom of the bag says ingredients that won't bother. Well, that's the whole point of eating sourdough, which you don't need to say that it's fermented sourdough. That's just what sourdough is. Well, that's what the bag says. Yeah, no, I know. But we're going to rip this open here. That's our crackers. All right. More from this charcuterie gift basket. Here's another product or another brand known as Share Crackers. This is their za'atar sourdough variety. These are described as made in Detroit. Not described, I'm sure they are handmade in Detroit. All right, there you go, Mike.
[00:08:31] John Craven: This is reminding me of like airplanes where you have like those little charcuterie boxes. Yes, exactly. Super sized.
[00:08:38] Ray Latif: Yes. Here's Live Loud Foods candied citrus pistachios. You're a big pistachio guy, John, aren't you? Yeah, sure. There you go. That looks pretty good. Oh, candied citrus pistachios. That is, that sounds great, Ray. Now we have pickled golden beets with chili darbol.
[00:08:59] John Craven: I'll take those.
[00:09:00] Ray Latif: Yes. This is from a brand All Together Now. These look really good, actually. Oh my gosh. This, however, you know, again, very much more in line with a gift box than it is something that's going to be a high velocity product in stores. All right. More nuts here. We have cinnamon whiskey pecans from Nat's Nuts. These are slow roasted by hand and in small batches. All right. Who wants pecans? Sure. Cinnamon and whiskey. Tell me what you think about these. Share Crackers too. Can I get Share Crackers? We're finally getting to the charcuterie part of this. And this is where John really rips into stuff. This is Innozio's Italian Specialty Meats. This is their soppressata. Mama Teresa's mild soppressata. Soppressata, huh? And last but not least, we have some tomato jam. Yeah, this is very Harry and David-ish for sure. I mean, some of this stuff is like, it's just not going to see at a Walmart. This is Cellar Door Artisan Preserves tomato jam with red pepper.
[00:10:04] John Craven: This is turning into lunch over there.
[00:10:06] Ray Latif: What's even going on over here? Nat's nuts are pretty good, but I'm not really tasting a lot of whiskey, but I like the cinnamon. It's just dripping in booze. That's what you're hoping for? There's a little bit of barrel aging. Out of all these products, I think there's only a handful that I actually think might have a shot at high distribution. Unbothered Foods, Live Loud Foods. Nat's Nuts are good. Yeah, Nat's Nuts are great. I mean, I'd put those out to snack on. Which one? The Nat's Nuts. I mean, the Live Loud was solid too. Yeah. As were the, I don't know what this is called, Share Crackers? Share Crackers. We meet that's confusing Morgan Murdoch Didn't we meet her at the UNF I show perhaps on Unbothered Foods. Yeah, we've met her before Unbothered Foods possible possible Yeah, good crackers start of CPG event. Yeah, really good. I don't know about that giant meat stick Well, you slice it up. You know you don't just take a bite into it. No you should not definitely not bite into this Yes, what'd you think of those Share Crackers? Share Crackers are good. I will share I have these maybe should be in your little box over there, but they're Local Style Chicago inspired chips Wow Is it just called Local Style yeah, is that Italian beef Never variety of flavors. I brought you Italian beef and Hot Dog. They also have a hot giardiniera And a regular amazing they have no meat in them just to be clear, but here I'll give this one a mic try they're vegan.
[00:11:47] Speaker: Oh
[00:11:47] Ray Latif: Would you like try a Hot Dog chip, or are you scared? I'm good for now, but I like the fact that it's a loaded Hot Dog. It comes with, does it have pickle and... That's a Chicago style Hot Dog, right? It's not a loaded dog. Okay, Chicago style. Yep, it tastes like, this tastes like an Italian beef sandwich. Nice. Here we go. The Hot Dog kind of tastes like the pixings of a Chicago Hot Dog. Yeah, there's a lot going on. A little mustard. I wonder what the ingredients are. It's probably quite easy, actually, to make something taste like that, because all you need to do is add some pickle flavor, some mustard flavor. Let me see. Go for it. That's my contribution. OK, that's true. You're welcome.
[00:12:28] John Craven: It's on theme. Well done.
[00:12:29] Ray Latif: I'm going to unplug my mic and go home now. OK. All right, Mike has some, what are they, smoothies? Yeah, they're shakes. These are from Urban Remedy. What's the most important thing to note about these, Ray? You can't actually see the liquid you can't but 30 grams of protein Plus 10 grams of bovine collagen no added sugar Yeah, these are organic grass-fed Skin hair nail and joint support They're also made with cashew milk More quality products from Urban Remedy, so do they send those to you? Did you buy them from Whole Foods? They sent us a bunch of these. You can get some. Yeah, Urban Remedy is great. I love those kiosks that they have at Whole Foods. I'm not sure how they made that deal, but Nika Pasquale, who is the founder of the company, I've sat down with her for a Taste Radio interview, and she has a great story. That's a brand that I love and shop for and buy their products as often as I can. I mean, they're a little bit on the pricier side, but they're extremely high quality and premium products. They make the shakes, they make juice shots. I believe they make sodas and prepared like salads and snack bars. I mean, you don't know how they negotiated this deal. They just started rolling vending machines into Whole Foods. No, that's not how it works. No, they sat at a table and negotiated. They pitched a great product and, you know, Urban Remedy's got some great products if you need, you know, something good to eat. That's the hell of a pitch there.
[00:14:08] John Craven: That's what Whole Foods is.
[00:14:08] Ray Latif: It's like prepared foods, something good to eat. What about the Sun Butter Squares? The Sun Butter Squares are amazing. Yes, yes. Agreed. Yes. We actually visited the Urban Remedy manufacturing facility about five years ago. We went out to Sonoma and we met with Paul Coletta, who at the time was the CEO. And I think we got the first taste of those Sun Butter Squares and they were pretty killer.
[00:14:31] Jeffrey Klineman: Taste Radio meetups are continuing in Chicago, San Diego, San Francisco and London. Come hang out with the food, beverage and beer community for live podcast recordings, CPG networking and sample sharing. Want to attend or partner with us? Head to Taste Radio.com slash meetups. Quick pause to let you know that the leading event for New Beverage industry is headed back to Los Angeles this December 6th through 8th. BevNET Live brings founders, investors, retailers, suppliers, and operators together for product discovery, high-value conversations, and partnerships that can shape what comes next. Early registration pricing is available now. Head to bevnetlive.com to register. Mark your calendar. Nosh Live is back December 3rd and 4th in Los Angeles. Join packaged food founders, buyers, investors, and operators for two days of product discovery and conversations focused on what's next. Early registration pricing is available now. Head to noshlive.com to register.
[00:15:27] Ray Latif: All right. Jackie, what do you got in your hands?
[00:15:29] John Craven: So I have something that's interesting. We were talking about fiber last couple of weeks, actually. And I have, I think it's my easily it's corn milk. Yeah. It's interesting on the front. They're talking about calcium, vitamin A, D and E. There's also, it says excellent source of fiber. So another like kind of alt milk. I've never seen corn milk before. I've like, I've had corn tea. I tried it, it wasn't as like sweet as I was expecting, but I guess it's like another good alternative. But when I was looking at the ingredients, there are a lot of different things in here. So I guess I'd be curious to see if like the propositions on the front really drive consumers to grab this.
[00:16:14] Ray Latif: I don't know, oat milks are tough.
[00:16:16] John Craven: Yeah.
[00:16:17] Ray Latif: There's oat milk and almond milk and soy milk. You could go on for about half an hour, right?
[00:16:23] Mike Schneider: Exactly.
[00:16:23] Ray Latif: Corn milk. Yeah. Why would someone pick up corn milk? Watermelon seed milk. As opposed to any one of those other milks.
[00:16:30] John Craven: Right. Right. So I'm curious to see how it does. I've never seen corn milk before. So it's like another thing for people to try. I just, I see people going now back to soy milk and I don't know, there's just a lot of, uh, coming back. Yeah. Yeah. Coming back to soy milk. I feel like there's just like so many different messages as far as these milks go, like soy is bad for you. So now let's go to almond milk. And then now all these gums and almonds are killing the earth.
[00:16:55] Ray Latif: So let's. Yeah. Sustainable.
[00:16:58] John Craven: And yeah, it's a tough space right now, but I mean, people are still drinking alt milk. So be curious to see if people, you know, want to try corn milk, but I also have another product, which they came to our San Diego meetup. This is called super lava, Dan Dan sauce. And they're based in San Diego. Really delicious. I love the packaging and they have some really cool recipes just on pack. So they have like a.
[00:17:22] Ray Latif: Mean they tell you how to make some noodles, and then they also tell you how to make some spicy chicken salad And no seed oils in this so I'm gonna be the hater and pronounce it Don Don Don Don sauce dumb dumb sauce as opposed to Dan Dan, how are you gonna pronounce it?
[00:17:38] John Craven: Well Jackie pronounced it Dan Dan Don Don
[00:17:44] Ray Latif: And on. So I'm excited because the founder, Helen Lee, is going to join us for an upcoming episode of Elevator Talk. So stay tuned for that. Lovely. Indeed. It's super lovely. Anyone? Anyone? Did you get that? No. Super lovey. Super lover. Super love it. Got it. Yeah, we got it. We got it. It was great. Yes, yes. But yeah, if you're interested in applying for a future episode or being on a future episode of Elevator Talk, it's very easy. Go to Taste Radio.com slash Elevator Talk and we'll get you on the top series highlighting emerging brands in the food New Beverage space. So something to consider. Now we have, I don't know what, 25 different brands here on the table right now. It is possible that one of them or some of them could be a winner of our Inosh Best of 2025 Awards or our BevNET Best of 2025 Awards. I would say Brewbound as well, but I don't think we have any ABs, alcoholic beverages right now. So how does one get considered to be a winner of said awards, Jackie?
[00:18:48] John Craven: Yeah, right now we are taking nominations and you can submit as many nominations as you want. And we have a variety of categories of awards that we're looking for, but yeah, just head to bed net.com slash awards, bruben.com slash awards and Nosh.com slash awards. And that's where you can find the nomination form. But yeah, this is like a great opportunity for exposure. Every year we do these annual awards and we present them on stage at our upcoming events.
[00:19:16] Ray Latif: Can I nominate anyone, Jackie? Like, what if I'm a PR company? Can I nominate all my lovies?
[00:19:20] John Craven: Yes, you can. Yeah, you can. You can nominate all of your clients. You can nominate any brand. You don't have to nominate yourself. Anyone that you think deserves to be recognized this year for innovation, for being a leader in the industry. We want to hear them all.
[00:19:35] Ray Latif: 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 Cracci. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt, and our video editor is Ryan Galang. Our social marketing manager is Amanda Smerlinski, 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 Podcasts app or your listening platform of choice. Check us out on Instagram. Our handle is bevnettasteradio. As always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please send us an email to ask at Taste Radio.com. On behalf of the entire Taste Radio team, thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time. you VIP has quietly powered New Beverage industry for more than 50 years, trusted by more than 2,800 distributors and 1,400 suppliers. They have defined this industry time and again. And in this era of AI, they're leading the way. Today, we're joined by VIP CEO, Andrew Krizis, and Head of Sales, Lucinda Aquat, to discuss where the industry is headed and what customers can expect next. Andrew, it's great to see you. How are you? Good. Thanks for having me, Ray. Lucinda, how are you?
[00:21:07] Mike Schneider: So great. Excited to be here.
[00:21:09] Ray Latif: Yes. And our audience is excited to hear about VIP's capabilities with AI because it is a topic that is top of mind for so many founders at this point. Andrew, as I mentioned, VIP has been around for over 50 years. Your background is pretty interesting because you bring so much to the table as CEO. How did you come to VIP?
[00:21:30] John McKenna: Yeah, great question, Ray. And I think it does go back to the legacy of VIP. So I'm incredibly passionate about New Beverage and alcohol industry, the broader CPG industry as a whole. So I spent the last 12 years plus working at Nielsen IQ, working with many of the suppliers that could be listening to this, distributors and retailers. And it was about five years ago that I first interacted with VIP and it's actually a partner to Nielsen IQ. And so complimentary partnership was created and I got to know the company a little bit. I got to see the value of what VIP creates in the industry and how it helps support the three tier system. And I was just blown away also by the people. by just the caliber of the talent, how respected they were in the industry, how much knowledge they had across the three-tier system. And so once I started to get to know the company a bit more, I saw just the opportunity for the technology to do so much more across the industry. And with AI, as we were talking about becoming really important and accelerating every day, every week, I started to realize it's a huge moment for AI and technology and more investment to come into VIP, really help our clients, help the suppliers, help the distributors and retailers, and transform how operations and the day-to-day work is getting done. So I just saw that as a great opportunity, both in the technology and AI side, leveraging all of my data background and knowledge in the industry, but then joining a group that has an amazing culture, an amazing team, and a ton of passion behind it.
[00:22:49] Ray Latif: Lucinda, when you came to VIP, you also came with a ton of experience. Just talk a bit about your background in this industry.
[00:22:56] Mike Schneider: Yeah, thanks, Ray. So I like to say I was born and raised in the beer business, but I got here as soon as I could. Started when I was 21 with Boston Beer Company. I've worked in all three tiers of the three-tier supply chain over the last 20 years. And I showed up to the first day to the VIP office here in Burlington, and I felt like I should be asking for autographs because VIP is the only set of data and the only set of tools that I've ever used on any of the three tiers. So it was really remarkable to see the team of people that has built such an incredible organization and really built from the ground up over the past 50 plus years that VIPs existed. So I'm honored to be here, a part of the team now to help carry the sales team into the future with all this new, authentic work that we're going to talk about.
[00:23:42] Ray Latif: Andrew, let's just start off by talking about where New Beverage industry is headed right now in broad terms and why AI is such a critical strategic investment for founders and businesses.
[00:23:52] John McKenna: You know, I think about whether you're a small supplier or distributor or a large supplier, you know, New Beverage alcohol space. You could be only have a few people at your company or hundreds. At the end of the day, everyone's looking for efficiency, whether you're three people within your company and you're stretching yourself to try to do five jobs. Or again, you're a larger company with maybe 10 people in the finance department. You're all trying to find better ways to do what you're doing so you can drive more product to consumers. So AI is just coming at this perfect moment over the last six to 12 months where everyone needs it. Everyone needs it for similar reasons, for inefficiencies, whether it's helping you run some reporting, it's helping you with pricing, it's helping you optimize something. At the end of the day, there's never enough hands and arms within a company when you're building a brand. And I've experienced that, you know, working with hundreds and hundreds of founders over the last 12 years in my past role with Nielsen IQ. And I see that with VIP. So I think all of the industry, both suppliers, distributors, retailers are looking at AI to try to understand how can I drive more efficiency? How can I drive a better delivery of my service or product to the end customer? And how can I do it in a way that's going to set me up for success? But now many people are taking it in different ways. You know, AI isn't something that's just intuitive and you throw on a chat bot and all of a sudden you're up and running. So it's really interesting to see how suppliers are leveraging AI, how distributors are leveraging AI, retailers, et cetera. And there's some fun nuances between those three.
[00:25:15] Ray Latif: When it comes to spending money on AI or otherwise, founders want to see a return on investment. And I'm curious about how you measure return on investment when it comes to AI. And also, there's so much hype about AI at this point. Where does hype meet reality? Lucinda, can you tackle both questions for me?
[00:25:34] Mike Schneider: Yeah, great questions. So I think I'll tackle the ROI question first, because I think it will address the buzzword as well. But I think when you think about AI, I was thinking back to all these different technological advances and how they've impacted the industry all the way back to when we used to have rolls of quarters to get on the payphone. And then all of a sudden, cell phones helped make us more efficient. Same thing with printers, and then the internet. I think of AI in the same way. It will give us the ability to enable all of our teams to be that much faster, that much smarter, smarter by way of better insights from the data. So if we're able to take a sales report, a sales ranker, and extract out the insights that much faster and distill down to the actual accounts we should be spending our time in, that to me is an instant ROI. There's also back of house applications. We think we talked with our distributors about some of the features that are most important to them as we're building out our new agentic platform. And it's things like avoiding the fat finger on the order. We don't want 10, we want one. We don't want 100, we want 10. And so giving the teams the ability to capture those things in advance, I think is where we see the ROI. It also empowers our retailers to make better orders. So think of predictive ordering in an e-commerce platform like Connect. There is so many great things that we can do to empower across all three of the tiers using all of our agentic features that we have in place now. So if I'm a retailer, if I'm a distributor, if I'm a supplier, that's how I think about the ROI. And it really enables the humans to be better at their jobs. So that in itself, I think is the buzz. I encourage people to think about AI as more of a tool and a way to do their business, a way to go about seeking the outcomes they're looking for versus this buzzword of a tool. And I think when we all begin to embrace it much more, we'll see that firsthand as well.
[00:27:27] Ray Latif: Obviously, technology is moving faster than it ever has before, and it's incumbent upon VIP to provide technology that is keeping up with the times, or in this case, keeping up by the day.
[00:27:38] John McKenna: Yeah, I think you're spot on with it's evolving every day, every week new models come out, Able 5 came out for the second time. So it's a constant. It's been great. I've had a few conversations just recently with some distributors and suppliers. And when we talk about the investments, one of the things that came out clearly from our clients was, they are interested, they are getting pressure to use AI. And so initially, you know, whether you're a founder on this call, a supplier or distributor, the thought process was, let's just take Jett, GPT, let's take Claude, let's just turn it on for everyone. And like, let's go get some insights. And you can get some gains and insights there. But ultimately, those clients came to us and said, hey, for us really to take advantage of this new technology and capability, we need VIP. We need VIP to do this within all the business processes, because VIP is so foundational to the core operations, whether you're a distributor, whether you're on the supplier side, looking at your inventory and depletions. And so that's where we took it upon ourselves to say, let's look at the marketplace. Let's look at all the different providers out there and take a hard look at ourselves. And we made the decision to make a really sizable, significant investment into a new architecture with AI and an agentic first decision. And what that allows us to do is actually create not just agents and AI on top of legacy products, which again, that still adds some value, but it doesn't change the game. And so we said, let's go down the path of actually building for the next several years, not for the next two months or three months, because a new model is to proceed something, but we need to have a new foundation. So VIPs made the biggest investment or one of the biggest investments we've ever made as a company. And that's gonna allow us to have magentic first platform, bring in many different types of data and create agents on top that again, aren't just giving you some insights, but I like to say are doing work. They're doing work for you as a supplier. They're actually making decisions on your behalf within certain guardrails. And then they're able to communicate for you. If you're a supplier, actually having these agents do work for you, communicate to your distributors, to your trading partners on your behalf. Again, I go back to my first point. Everyone needs more arms and hands, right? You never have enough people when you're a small player or a large player. And so actually being able to do some of that work, communicate digitally to distributors, whether it's pricing, whether it's something related to inventory, whether it's shipments. And likewise, distributors having agents that can interpret and engage and make decisions on their behalf and then communicate to their trading partners. That's where we're going as VIP with AI. We think we play a really central role into that core operational element of how the three tier system works. But we were also cognizant that that takes real investment. It's not just lipstick on an existing product and putting in a chat bot and saying, oh, everything's AI. It's really looking at the foundation of what's needed So much has changed just in the last six months, where whether you're a software or data company, what you had built maybe two years ago, even 12 months ago, almost becomes irrelevant from an architectural standpoint, just because the last six months. So that level of investment is something we're fully driving towards and working with a lot of clients on both the distributor and supplier side of how we bring this new platform to life. And at the same time, though, we're still investing in our existing products. That is not stopping. So I think of it from a VIP standpoint, as we're going down both paths, we're investing in existing products, putting AI on top, kind of what I was mentioning with many others in the industry. But we're also going after this whole new architecture and whole new platform. And that's what's really required long term of the three tier system.
[00:31:02] Ray Latif: Whenever I talk to founders, operators about who they choose their partners, it really comes down to trust. And I think when you're talking about AI and the evolution of this technology, it's really important to trust your partner. And it seems like the level of expertise that you guys can provide to companies is just unmatched at this point. So I highly encourage folks to get in touch with the team at VIP. Lucinda, what's the best way to do so?
[00:31:30] Mike Schneider: Yeah, thanks Ray. We are so excited to hear from all our customers. We're getting questions every day and I do think the best way to reach out to us is vipinsights.com and go and submit a form, request a demo, send in a question and we will be able to get back to you. But our sales team is talking with all of our customers all day every day about this and we're really excited to bring everyone more.
[00:31:51] Ray Latif: Outstanding. Well, Andrew, Lucinda, thank you so much for taking the time. I'm really excited for the future of AI and VIP's ability to help companies address this technology in a really effective way. So thanks again, and let's definitely stay in touch. Great. Thanks for having us, Ray.
[00:32:06] Mike Schneider: Thank you, Ray.
