[00:00:10] Ray Latif: Hey, folks, 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 I'm with my episode co-hosts John Craven, Jacqui Brugliera, and Mike Schneider. Now, at this point, I typically say, you know, we would love it if you could review us on the Apple Podcasts app or your listening platform of choice.
[00:00:34] John Craven: Yes, you do.
[00:00:34] Ray Latif: And I really mean it. I think sometimes when I say it, it just becomes like habit or just, you know, sort of part of the intro and this kind of lackadaisical thing that I say. But it's not intended to be that. It's intended to be a very exciting, hopefully, call to action so that people do go and review us on the Apple podcast app. It is something that's important to us. It's important for people to find us on that app and other apps as well. So if you have an opportunity, please do so. Five stars is always nice. An actual written review is really, really nice. And if you do so, please just let us know. Send Us an email to ask at Taste Radio.com. We will Send Us the softest Taste Radio t-shirt that we can possibly find. If you don't think it's the softest t-shirt you ever found in your life or ever wore in your life, you can return it for a full money back guarantee. Is that what they say?
[00:01:28] John Craven: Jackie, I think Ray outed us. We basically make him say this every episode. When he said call to action, it was like, oh, the marketing people.
[00:01:37] Ray Latif: Yeah, I know my CTAs. Come on. Well, happy new year to the team. Happy new year to everyone listening. You know, it's an exciting time to be in the food and beverage industry. I have been scrolling through LinkedIn and the Twitters and all that. And people seem to be still saying they have resolutions for the year and they're promising that they will do this thing for themselves or that thing for themselves or their business or their brand. And I wondered, I was like, I thought new year's resolutions were like, not a thing anymore. I, I thought people stopped doing those. Do you guys do those?
[00:02:12] John Craven: No, John Craven said no. I'm still working on the same things. Jackie, how about you?
[00:02:20] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, I would say I don't do New Year's resolutions as much as I do kind of like monthly check ins. And I feel like some people do that too. They do more regular goal setting or, you know, reflection. I think it puts a lot of pressure on yourself when you're just doing it once a year and saying the laundry list of things that you want to change about yourself or do you kind of set yourself up to fail? I feel like when you have all these things that you want to change, and I feel like Personally, it works better organically in a more natural way as far as goal setting.
[00:02:51] John Craven: I mean, you have a really cool one, though, Jackie. Jackie just got a bass, a bass guitar, so she's gonna learn how to play the bass.
[00:02:57] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, I want to learn how to play the bass. I do have some goals for the year, but I'm not putting a ton of pressure on them. It's more things that started last year that I want to bring into the new year.
[00:03:08] Ray Latif: You know, you don't play the bass, Jackie, right? You slap the bass. So, you know, by the end of this year, I want to, I want to hear you slap that bass.
[00:03:21] Jacqui Brugliera: That'll be one episode.
[00:03:22] Ray Latif: As to our listeners.
[00:03:25] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, I'm gonna be learning with the help of Mike, who already slaps the bass.
[00:03:29] Ray Latif: Mike, you do? I didn't know that. Yeah, Ray, I play bass. Really? Did you start in college or high school, or is this something you just picked up?
[00:03:37] John Craven: I started in high school with an Ovation P bass. I'm dating myself. What the heck are you talking about, an Ovation P bass? Yeah. We're going down a new rabbit hole that John's gonna hate. Yeah. Okay, all right.
[00:03:49] Mike Schneider: God, couldn't you just say you play the oboe or something? I don't know.
[00:03:54] Ray Latif: Yeah, basically. Well, anyway, I don't think there's anything wrong with setting goals or having a new year's resolutions, but, you know, it reminded me actually, just again, scrolling through LinkedIn about an episode of Taste Radio that featured Mark Rampolla, who is the founder of Zico coconut water. And one of the founders of power plant ventures, which is a venture capital firm that invests in. surprisingly, maybe not surprisingly given the name, plant-based foods and beverages. And he talked in that episode about the importance of setting goals and not just long-term goals, not just annual goals, but daily goals, weekly goals, monthly goals. And, you know, it was really interesting to hear him talk about how he reviewed that list. every single day, every single morning he woke up, he would look at that list of daily goals, of weekly, monthly, and then like long-term lifetime goals, and make sure that he was on his way, make sure that he was doing the things he needed to do to achieve each of those in a really productive way. And I thought it was such a smart, intelligent, and you know, empowering way of looking at ways to achieve your dreams in so many ways. Because you can't just say, well, wake up one day and say, hey, I'm gonna get a Ferrari. You have to work your way up to that. And I know that sounds really stupid and simple for me to say that, but it's funny to me how many people I've talked to over the past year who will say they want this or want that and don't really have any kind of path toward that goal. And it's the little things, it's the little goals first and foremost that help you get to that big long-term one. The episode that I'm referencing was published on September 27th of 2019. It's titled The 1007 Huddle and Other Habits of an Ultra Successful Entrepreneur. It's an outstanding listen. And Mark is one of the most intelligent guys I know in the industry. And I highly recommend folks listen to it if they haven't already had an opportunity to.
[00:05:57] John Craven: I thought you were gonna say you can't climb Machu Picchu without taking that first step, which is another thing that Jackie has done, by the way.
[00:06:04] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, I didn't do that.
[00:06:06] Ray Latif: I've climbed Machu Picchu as well. I haven't gone all the way up to the what's that they have like the the monks mountain, the one that you have to like get tickets to to go all the way all the way up.
[00:06:15] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, I didn't do that. I did the Salkantay Trek though, the five day Salkantay Trek to get there.
[00:06:21] Ray Latif: Oh, the one from Cusco?
[00:06:23] Jacqui Brugliera: It's yeah, right outside of Cusco.
[00:06:25] Ray Latif: Wow, that's serious. Nicely done.
[00:06:29] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, that was definitely a long term goal. And I eventually achieved it. And it took a lot of training, but it was fun.
[00:06:36] Ray Latif: I just remember when you went because I was in San Diego a few weeks before you left. And I gave you like a photos guide for visiting Peru.
[00:06:45] Taste Radio: Yeah, it was helpful. It was it was. Okay, good.
[00:06:51] Ray Latif: Well, I don't know if this happens to you, but every holiday break, and typically I'm talking about like that Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's break, I'm home With Family or visiting family and friends. And they're always like asking me like, you know, what do you see in the food and beverage industry? What cool trends are you seeing? You know, what innovation, what are the new products that you that you would recommend? You know, for me, it never really comes down to like the most innovative formulations or ingredients or like the weirdest products that I've seen. It always comes back to taste. And the recommendations I always make and the brands I always mention are the ones that are best tasting. And I don't think it's too strange because I think that's always what people defer to in our industry. And what they're most excited about are the best tasting products, right? I mean, I'm sure you guys have these conversations with your family and friends too, or maybe I'm just an outlier in this regard.
[00:07:43] Mike Schneider: I wish my family asked that sort of stuff. If I can get an invite to your holiday dinner in the future, that would just be perfect, so.
[00:07:53] Ray Latif: Well, I do have a lot of family members and they're always picking my brain about the business, so to speak. You guys don't get those questions? Mike, Jackie, you're not like, people aren't, are bugging you about what you're seeing? What's happening in the Bev and food industry?
[00:08:12] John Craven: My son asks me questions every day. My daughter sometimes, I mean. My son's like always, what's going on? When can I go to BevNET? When can I loot BevNET?
[00:08:22] Mike Schneider: I mean, the questions I seriously get more are like, either it'll be something like, have you seen that new stuff called VitaCoco? Yeah. Or I suppose another common one that's starting to taper off, fortunately, is I had this IPA from this brewery in, I don't know, Albany. You must know it, right? It's like, no. There's 8,000 plus whatever it is now, breweries. Don't know them all. Sorry.
[00:08:52] Jacqui Brugliera: I would say my friends definitely ask me around the holidays, especially we live in San Diego, obviously. So they can go to the store and find a lot of really cool, innovative products, but they come to me for RTD cocktails and cannabis products. So they're asking me about innovation in that space, especially around the holidays. I had like some products to share, like a little stocked bar for the holidays. The two gronies were flying off the shelf.
[00:09:19] John Craven: Those are so good. I usually have a little Christmas get together with some friends that they usually expect there to be something that they've never seen before. And this year it was, I had De Soi and I wasn't expecting people to be into it because it's usually a drinking occasion, but we killed three bottles of De Soi. I was pretty surprised.
[00:09:45] Ray Latif: This swa is the non alcoh They wanted only Katy Perry, K-A-T-Y.
[00:09:59] John Craven: Katy Perry, so nice.
[00:10:00] Ray Latif: Superstar. Yes. Good stuff for sure. Well, I am very excited to see a bunch of the new products that are going to be on display and exhibited at the Winter Fancy Food Show, the 2023 Winter Fancy Food Show, which is coming up in just a few days, going to start on Sunday. January 15th and go to January 17th. I'm heading out there to Las Vegas. I'd assume a bunch of our listeners are as well either to exhibit or walk the floor. If you're doing either, please let us know. Send Us an email to ask at Taste Radio. If you have news about any kind of new product launches, product revamps, line extensions, retail or distribution news that you're going to be highlighting at the show, please let the BevNET and Nosh teams know via our Submit News form on both sites. You can find them at the top of each homepage where it just says Submit News. It's very helpful for our editorial teams to know exactly what you're gonna be doing at the show. And again, that Submit News form is very helpful in that regard. So please do so and yeah, see you at the show. All right, I'd like to make a big thank you to Kiwa Hakko, which is a maker of an ingredient called Cognizant, which is a leading nootropic designed for work exercise, video gaming or other everyday activities. It's designed to be a comprehensive brain health functional ingredient for your beverage. If you're interested, head to Cognizant.com. That's C-O-G-N-I-Z-I-N.com. You know, I think I've seen a few beverage brands use Cognizant in our Elevator Talk series, which we've talked about in past episodes of Taste Radio. Elevator Talk, once again, is a bi-monthly video series that highlights innovative and emerging brands from across the food and beverage industry. We do so via short 10-minute interviews in an hour-long episode. I co-host the episodes with an industry expert. That industry expert usually comes from the investment world, retailing distribution, or some other significant part of the food and beverage industry. It's a great way to introduce your brand to the food and beverage community. It's a great way to get feedback and advice about what you're doing, your business plans and strategies. It is something that I feel like every early stage entrepreneur should participate in, and it's really easy to do. So if you'd like to apply, head to BevNET.com or Nosh.com slash Elevator Talk and do so today. Each episode fills up pretty quickly in terms of scheduling. So the sooner you apply the better. I was very excited this past week to find in the BebNet cooler, the newest iteration of Somi Energy, S-O-M-I, a maker Somi Energy drinks powered by matcha. Somi have moved into 12-ounce Slim cans, and I feel like this is a perfect transition for them into something that's a little bit more convenient and consumable than, say, a 16-ounce format. Really great job. It's a little different in terms of the label design, but I feel like this is something that will really stand out on shelf and again, be really easy as a sort of grab and Somi Energy drink product. Jackie's sipping on one right now. Which one do you have?
[00:13:33] Jacqui Brugliera: I have the Yuzu Lemonade and I also have the Osaka Red Berries. They also updated the formulation and both of these updates they said came from a lot of feedback that they received during the New Beverage Showdown and also from consumers. So I'm excited to see them iterate so fast. And I agree. I think this is a great format for them. It looks like an energy drink. And yeah, I just, I love the Slim Cans.
[00:13:58] Mike Schneider: I'll chime in with two things that were on my desk waiting for me when I got back. First, these, uh, say so cocktail tea bags. These are basically like you take some booze and then add a, or I guess you could use a non-alcoholic spirit to make a mocktail and you use one of these tea bags to, uh, infuse it for, uh, three minutes. This one is, uh, an old fashioned, definitely right up my alley. And they also have a, uh, skinny spicy margarita unfortunately you lost me at the skinny part personally but i'm sure it's delightful and the second thing i got this kind of looks like a secret vial here but it's a um the new Barr Hill kingdom strength tomcat gin Kingdom Strength, kind of like Navy Strength, it's higher alcohol, 56.5%. But Tomcat Gin is great stuff. If you've never had it, highly recommend. Great distillery, Caledonia, up in Vermont.
[00:15:01] Ray Latif: Good stuff. Well, I'm going to have to swipe that, or at least some of that Tomcat Gin off your desk there, if that's okay, John.
[00:15:10] Mike Schneider: I'll give you a sip from my little teeny bottle.
[00:15:15] Ray Latif: Thank you. And thanks so much to everyone who is listening. As always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please Send Us an email to ask at Taste Radio. 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 so much for listening. And we'll talk to you next time.
