[00:00:10] Ray Latif: Hello, and thanks for tuning in to Taste Radio, the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food or beverage. I'm Ray Latif, the editor and producer of Taste Radio, and with my co-host for this episode, John Craven, Jacqui Brugliera, and Mike Schneider. The 600 or is it 900? I always forget exactly what the weight of the elephant in the room is. But what is it? 900, right? I think the gorilla is 800 pounds.
[00:00:38] John Craven: That's for sure. Is it like a ton?
[00:00:41] Ray Latif: No, that would be a 2,000 pound. I think the elephant's just in the room. No one weighs it. I don't think there's a 600 pound elephant. No, there definitely is not. But maybe we should be saying a ton elephant nowadays. I think Jackie's on the right track there. Anyway, the elephant in the room, in a positive way, in a positive setting, is Elk Expo West. You know, Expo West is right around the corner. Can't wait.
[00:01:05] John Craven: Yeah, Craven, you were just in Anaheim, so you were having like PTSD there, just waiting.
[00:01:09] Jacqui Brugliera: Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Thanks for reminding me.
[00:01:12] John Craven: You're welcome.
[00:01:12] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, love being in Anaheim. You were there for? Disneyland. Disneyland! Come on, you had fun.
[00:01:20] John Craven: Yeah, I saw you doing like a cocktail tour.
[00:01:23] Jacqui Brugliera: They have a lot of cocktails there now.
[00:01:25] Mike Schneider: I will crap on Disneyland and Disney World all day. And then I go there and it's like I invented it. You had fun. Come on.
[00:01:31] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, it was fun. I mean, we went with one of our daughters who's 17, senior in high school, a lot better going with a child of that age than, uh, I don't know, like kid in a stroller.
[00:01:43] Mike Schneider: Been there, done that.
[00:01:44] Jacqui Brugliera: So yeah, it was also kind of weird to like see places and be like, been to a happy hour here. Might be one here in, you know, a week or two.
[00:01:52] Mike Schneider: Did you see Kylo Ren? Did you go on the Rise of the Resistance? No. No?
[00:01:57] Jacqui Brugliera: Child does not like Star Wars.
[00:01:58] Mike Schneider: Gotcha.
[00:01:59] Jacqui Brugliera: But I did get like 25 miles of walking in, so I felt like it was, it was a good warmup. Nice.
[00:02:05] Ray Latif: I've never been to Disneyland. The Disneyland is the one in Anaheim. Disney World is the one in Orlando. Folks who don't already know that. Just some trivia to share with your family at Thanksgiving. Anyway, just to celebrate your return, Mr. Craven, I got you a present. Oh, yay. Because I figure your car needs to be good smelling at all times. I mean, I'm working on that every day. Are you a new car smell kind of guy? No. I didn't think so.
[00:02:35] John Craven: What do you like your car to smell like then?
[00:02:37] Jacqui Brugliera: If it's not, I mean, look, I don't, I don't, I really don't drive a lot at the end of the day. Cause I work like, you know, or live a mile from our office here. So I think I'm like two and a half years in on my car and I just hit 10,000 miles.
[00:02:51] Ray Latif: Nice. Yeah. Well, anyway, I got you an air freshener. This is from the decent folks at Joyride. Joyride is a maker of Better Sour you candy, low sugar, low carb, low cal, and they sent this air freshener, which I thought would be perfect for your vehicle.
[00:03:07] Jacqui Brugliera: It looks perfect. I might put this in my child's car.
[00:03:11] Ray Latif: Bacon we should open it up.
[00:03:14] Jacqui Brugliera: I believe it smells like a Certain someone upstairs on the main level who comes down here freaks out with the scent of that, but who's that? Calm John McKenna.
[00:03:26] John Craven: Okay. At least it's better than a, what is it? Like the one everyone has black ice. That's like the car freshener smell.
[00:03:31] Jacqui Brugliera: It's like Jackie up on the California. That's, you know, got a lot of time on the freeway. As long as it's not smeared off ice, like that would not be a good car.
[00:03:43] Mike Schneider: Jackie at her mushroom con talking about air freshener. You create a new club.
[00:03:53] John Craven: No one's high there, no one's high.
[00:03:55] Mike Schneider: Not a single person.
[00:03:58] Ray Latif: Well, I bring up Joyride because this brand, a maker of uncommon candy, recently introduced a new line of sour strips. I love sour strips. Me too. That might be my favorite candy. More than Listerine strips? Is it your favorite strip? Boy, oh boy, candy strip. I was very clear about that, candy strip. Anyway, these are, according to Joride, the market's first low-sugar sour strips. They come in four flavors. Ready for this? Green apple, strawberry, pink lemonade, and everyone's favorite, blue raspberry. Blue Damn raspberry.
[00:04:44] John Craven: Maybe this is what changes your mind.
[00:04:46] Ray Latif: All right. Hold on now. What's the blue? Okay. Hold on. I'm not going to open it. I just want to inspect. This always happens. I just want to inspect the ingredients. John reaches across the table and like grabs all my samples and then eats them. It happened before the show. Yes. It happened before the show.
[00:05:00] Mike Schneider: He had this big moment where he was going to reveal the new Ted Lasso Milano cookie.
[00:05:05] Ray Latif: And you just did. All right. Here. All right, John now has the pack of blue raspberry strips and while he's... Stealing the thunder. Yes, while he's talking about this... Okay, I don't see any, like, red and blue dyes, so I'll give this a try. Let's be clear. These are crafted with only four grams of sugar. I say crafted because that's what it says in the press release. Gut-friendly, prebiotic fiber, and no synthetic dyes. It's a plant-based candy. I thought most candies are plant-based. I guess most are chemical-based, really.
[00:05:35] Jacqui Brugliera: meat snack uh hold on hold on do you Behave Candy before you i'm not i'm not i'm just gonna dump it on the table don't dump it on the oh my goodness i'm just gonna take a i'm gonna no no just take a bite off all right here you go these actually look more uh they look great they look like purple yeah it looks like a tongue
[00:05:53] John Craven: It looks like it's on all right blue raspberry makes sense for candy though people expect it's going for it.
[00:05:58] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah No, I mean, I think it's a classic candy flavor again.
[00:06:02] Mike Schneider: Yeah, I gotta have it I'm gonna show you something blue that you like I know a lobby has that blue cashew butter we gotta get them so I mean Spirulina or like what is it?
[00:06:12] John Craven: What is the blue that?
[00:06:14] Ray Latif: Yeah, that stuff's great. The natural blue coloring comes from things like spirulina, yes. So when you see ready-to-drink smoothies or protein smoothies, just like Remedy Organics. Remedy Organics has a protein skew that is made with spirulina and it's blue colored. Super blue. Right. Super tasty. So I'm going to give this a whirl. Now, I will admit, I already dipped into these. I dipped into the sour strawberry strips that Jory put out, and they are amazing. Very addictive. This is the blue raspberry one.
[00:06:46] John Craven: What does it taste like?
[00:06:48] Ray Latif: So damn good.
[00:06:49] John Craven: Yeah? Oh, you're converted.
[00:06:51] Ray Latif: Oh, these are awesome. What is this? They're so good because they taste exactly like what you would expect them to taste like.
[00:06:59] Mike Schneider: They taste like what they're supposed to taste like. Right.
[00:07:01] Ray Latif: The chewiness, the sourness, the sweetness, the texture and how they break apart is exactly what you have come to expect growing up and eating this kind of stuff.
[00:07:14] Mike Schneider: And these are awesome. These are holy grail, in my opinion.
[00:07:17] Ray Latif: These are holy grail sour strips because this is exactly what people want. They want less sugar. They don't want the synthetic dyes. They want it to be low calorie and they want it to taste amazing. And Joyride knocked it out of the freaking park.
[00:07:29] Mike Schneider: Yeah, I wasn't expecting, I was expecting something on that checklist, which was the checklist. Ray Latif's Sour Strip Checklist.
[00:07:39] Ray Latif: It is now Ray's favorite strip. It is my favorite. I already put this on Instagram. I already said it's my favorite strip. It's true. Joyride also partnered. The Listerine people are crying somewhere right now. Joyride partnered with YouTube sensation Ryan Trahan. I'm not familiar with Ryan, but apparently he is a YouTube sensation. As I mentioned, he has 14.6 million subscribers and he is helping to promote this product as Joyride's first chief creative officer. So very cool stuff. Well done Joyride.
[00:08:14] John Craven: It's funny that you have a sour candy, because I also have a sour candy called Fruit Riot. Nice. And this is sour mango, but it's actually frozen. So I found candy in the frozen aisle, which I was not expecting at all, but Super Bright Packaging really jumped off the shelf for me. And it's super simple. It's just mango, sour coating, and that's pretty much it.
[00:08:38] Ray Latif: Where did you find that? In Sprouts. In Sprouts, okay. Sour coating?
[00:08:43] John Craven: Yeah, so it's the sour coating is lemon juice and sugar and corn starch. So really simple. And it's just kind of like frozen mango bites. It is a little sour, but it's like, tastes all natural to me.
[00:09:00] Ray Latif: What's it sweetened with?
[00:09:02] John Craven: Just sugar.
[00:09:03] Ray Latif: Fruit. Okay.
[00:09:05] John Craven: And yeah, fruit. Mango.
[00:09:07] Ray Latif: Yeah, the first sweetener listed on these Joyride strips is Allulose, which a lot of candy brands are using. There's some Stevia in there too, like the last ingredient. There's sugar, there's Steviol. Steviol glycosides. I don't care, I like it. Yeah, it's amazing. I think it's really good. It is really good. But, you know, Better Sour You Candy, I mean, talk about a category, or at least a segment of a category on the rise. People are coming out of the woodwork with Even Better Sour You Candy.
[00:09:37] Mike Schneider: There's some really great stuff out there. Shoutouts to Better Sour, shoutouts to Behave. So many good, yeah, just gummy sour gummies.
[00:09:46] Ray Latif: Apparently Smart Sweets is launching a bunch of new products and new innovation at Expo West.
[00:09:52] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, they're the OG, right? I gotta give props to Tyler Merrick for his, uh, pivot from the old days of Project 7, gums, bottled water, over to Joyride Candy candy. I mean, it just seems like such an evolution and, you know, great tasting products, fun brand. Great to see someone who keeps going until they get it right, so.
[00:10:16] Ray Latif: Yeah, well, I think Tyler completely did the right thing because Project 7 felt very mature and old, frankly, and Joyride feels very young, fresh, and fun. Definitely. You know what I think of when I think of young, fresh, and fun? Earl Grey tea. You drink your Earl Grey tea on a... That's Mike's morning beverage every morning, right? The look he just gave me.
[00:10:43] Mike Schneider: Yeah, I make myself an Earl Grey tea every morning out of the Llamas Elko machine. Okay.
[00:10:50] Ray Latif: Along with your fiber supplement. A brand we don't often talk about on Taste Radio is... Often? Ever. Ever. It's Pepperidge Farm, but... I saw that Pepper's Farm launched a new flavor for its Milano cookie line. If you recall, the Milano cookies are two sort of butter cookies and in the middle is some chocolate cream.
[00:11:15] Jacqui Brugliera: This is like explaining what an Oreo is. Not everyone knows what a Milano cookie is.
[00:11:20] John Craven: It's iconic.
[00:11:20] Jacqui Brugliera: It's an iconic cookie.
[00:11:23] Ray Latif: So they have it was kind of fun to hear you try to explain it, but anyway So they have a new London fog flavor which is described as a taste of Earl Grey tea with vanilla and so They've partnered up with your favorite owner and mine from Ted Lasso, Hannah Waddingham, who plays the role of- Rebecca. Rebecca on Ted Lasso. And she is going to be promoting these or has been promoting these since last week. She talks about how my pals at Pepperidge Farm and I are inviting everyone to hold their baked goods to a higher standard and to have a little taste. She did not write that. She did not write that. She did not say that. I always love when I see quotes from celebrities, and even some founders, and you see it in a press release and you're like, I know 100% that they did not write that or say that. So why put that in there? It's not very authentic. I mean, she's fictional, so. She's a real person, Mike.
[00:12:20] Mike Schneider: I know, but the character that's doing the promotion.
[00:12:22] Jacqui Brugliera: Wait, why are you putting the cookies away?
[00:12:25] Mike Schneider: Sorry.
[00:12:25] Jacqui Brugliera: Can we add some tasting notes here? You already had one. I'm just going to pretend I didn't for a second.
[00:12:32] Ray Latif: I think it's a good idea.
[00:12:33] Mike Schneider: Eat your vegetables.
[00:12:34] Ray Latif: Go to your room. I love the fact that they partnered with Rebecca from Ted Lasso. But there's no mention of Ted Lasso on the package. There's no mention of it in the press release. I feel like they might have had a stronger push for this product. That would cost more dinero. Well, what they should have done, of course, with this is not only partner with the actual Ted Lasso brand, they should have partnered with our friends at Cognizant because what people want with their morning cookies is brain boosting ingredients. They want cognitive health brain function to be sharp throughout the day. That's the thing. And Cognizant gives you that. They are the presenting sponsor for this episode of Taste Radio. Cognizant is a clinically tested nootropic ingredient that delivers a patented form of citric choline to supply your brain and those of your consumers with the energy needs to stay sharp. Learn more at cognizant.com. That's C-O-G-N-I-Z-I-N dot com. Do you think they'd make you a special Taste Radio cognizant strip? No, but what I need, I need a cognizant hoodie. This is week two of my hoodie, uh, wearing during banter. And, uh, this is my old school Revive Kombucha hoodie, which I love. This is my most comfortable one. It fits really well. You try to revive it. Oh, let's just move on here. Uh, Ruby, Ruby, the brand of hibiscus based beverages or hibiscus based sparkling waters under one day rebrand. It's called a refresh. I'm sorry. Yes. A refresh, package refresh.
[00:14:12] John Craven: Yes.
[00:14:13] Ray Latif: It looks much more straightforward in terms of label hierarchy. I think they dispensed with the, I guess, wildness of the label design and went for a much more straightforward top-down kind of approach where the can at the top lists the flavor. You have a image of the flavor as the next thing you see, the USC organic seal. Enhanced Hydration is their new tagline. May have been their tagline in the past, but now it's very front and center. And then their brand logo underneath. So I think this is a much cleaner looking package.
[00:14:47] Jacqui Brugliera: Yeah, no, I give Noah Walsh like a lot of credit. He was the founder of Ruby. Yes, a lot of credit for the evolution here, rather quick one in just a few years. But yeah, it looks, it's got kind of like a lighter feel to it. The old one kind of looked like a heavier juice product and this, you know, it's sparkling water with hibiscus. I like this a lot. Looks good.
[00:15:10] John Craven: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense if they're really trying to hone in on hydration too. You know, hydration, you think of like water, something that's light and refreshing.
[00:15:19] Jacqui Brugliera: Definitely.
[00:15:20] Ray Latif: Yeah. I always thought of Ruby as being a sparkling water brand, but I also see or saw the old package and thought that it was more of a soda. This is very clearly, especially You know, the color scheme that they use where the top of the can is silver, there's no paint on it, and then the bottom of the can is the actual flavor.
[00:15:44] Mike Schneider: Something super interesting is happening on this can that no one's pointed out yet. Hibiscus is way backed off. Yeah, you're right about that. That's a good point.
[00:15:52] Ray Latif: It's almost not even present on the front of the can. It's this sparkling water with hibiscus, but underneath the logo in very small font.
[00:15:58] Mike Schneider: Hibiscus in very small font. The orange is huge. The grape is huge. Those look great, by the way. It's just really backed off on that ingredient that was considered trendy-ish.
[00:16:09] Ray Latif: All right, Mike, so you can put on your marketing hat because you took it off earlier. I did? Yeah, put your marketing hat on. Your numpty cap. Given that the brand was so deeply associated with hibiscus, I mean, it feels like it's going to be pretty hard to de-lace. Disassociate. Disassociate. With hibiscus?
[00:16:28] Mike Schneider: Yeah. If they were Coca-Cola and they were trying to disassociate themselves from Cola, it would be impossible, obviously. But they're called Ruby, which is red. So yes, they're always calling to something being red about the brand. So disassociating themselves, I think they're doing it right here. They're saying the hero here isn't hibiscus, it's grape and it's blood orange on those cans.
[00:16:51] John Craven: Yeah. They're going broader, which I think is an easier transition rather than going from hydration and then focusing on their core ingredient of hibiscus. So going from hibiscus then to hydration, it's just easier to communicate to a wider audience and to their consumers.
[00:17:09] Ray Latif: Agreed. Well, in any case, it is a good looking package, and I feel like Ruby, which was already on a good path, is on an even better one. So well done.
[00:17:19] Mike Schneider: It feels a bit like, you know, that successful playbook that, I don't know, maybe Bai tried? They were all in on the coffee fruit and then they're like, oh, this stuff just tastes great. It's a water. It has low calories. We just totally back off on the whole coffee fruit idea. And it's an ingredient, just like hibiscus.
[00:17:37] Ray Latif: There you go. Another brand that has undergone a bit of a transition is Zesty Z. Zesty Z, a maker or past maker of za'atar and also popcorn. has gone all in on Pita Chips. Perfect Pita Chips. We covered this transition in a recent article on Nosh penned by Monica Watrous. And I tried these a year and a half ago. I tried these a year and a half ago at the Winter Fancy Food Show in 2023. But I haven't tried them since, so I'm excited too. But what happened to the hand sanitizer?
[00:18:12] Jacqui Brugliera: We're all out. I also, I think we already ate the, uh, we just have like the, uh, sea salt variety. They have like a Parmesan. When you say we ate them, who's we? Uh, people who were in the office yesterday. As in you? Uh, no, there were a lot of people here. I don't think I saw you, which is fine. But anyway, no we had two bags of these the Parmesan one in this one and Everyone kind of devoured the parmesan flavor. It's quite tasty.
[00:18:46] Ray Latif: All right.
[00:18:46] Jacqui Brugliera: Well, these are also I for sea salt like Pita Chips
[00:18:51] Mike Schneider: Super tasty. I would dip those in shakshuka. I mean, those are great. It's the perfect crisp. It's the perfect flavor. It's not too salty, but there's definitely a bit of salt there. What do you think?
[00:19:04] Ray Latif: So we had Alexander Herrick, who's the co-founder and CEO of Zesty Z. One of the chillest dudes. In a recent episode of Elevator Talk. That is actually, it was published this week. It was published on Wednesday. And he talked about how this move was something that was elicited by retailers' desire to have a better and more authentic Pita Chips as part of their stores in their aisles. And while popcorn is a very competitive and heavily saturated category, somehow Pita Chips, it seemed like there was a lot of white space and a lot of room for a product like this. And it is really delicious. It's also 25% or the call it on the pack is 25% less net carbs versus leading brands. But again, I, you know, going back to this new category for Zest-E-Z, it goes to show the power of having that conversation with your retailers and listening to them about what they're looking for and just trying to deliver on that.
[00:20:07] Jacqui Brugliera: It is sort of the classic, on top of what you just said, the classic move of you know, trying to elevate something that's already out there, that has a lot of demand, that's, you know, maybe stagnant on a new, right? And that's pretty different than trying to mainstream products that are Zatar based, right? Right. So it is one of those things where you look at it and, you know, on the surface, I'm kind of like I already peed a chip, but You know, first of all, they're super tasty. Branding's great. And, you know, when you think about the category, it's like there's Stacy's Pita Chips owned by a big company, lots of random sort of, I don't know, private label, store brand stuff. And then fresh. Yeah. And this is sort of, you know, why not breathe a little excitement into the category?
[00:20:56] Mike Schneider: I think the most daring thing about this is to put the word perfect on the front of the bag, because if you put that there, it has to be. Otherwise, you're just like, oh, world's greatest cup of coffee. You go back to elf, you know, well done.
[00:21:12] Ray Latif: Mike was about to lose it because Mike really doesn't like perfect as a word as we talked about last week.
[00:21:20] Mike Schneider: I mean, he kind of like perfect, but I like the word perfect. if it's perfect. That was perfect, Mike.
[00:21:27] Ray Latif: Thanks, Ray. We also talked about... I believed you, so I liked it. We also talked about pasta snacks in last week's episode. We talked about a new brand called Snoods. I didn't really think pasta snacks were a thing. And then I recently saw a brand of pasta snacks, another one. Penne Straws is the name of the brand, and I have two of their varieties in my hand. One is their marinara variety. These are the ones that are made with lentils. And one is made with lemon garlic, and they are made with lentils and white beans. Yes, please. Three grams of protein per serving. And they look like penny. They're called Penne Straws. So do you want to try the marinara, Mike? Yes, please. I want the marinara. All right. John looks so disappointed.
[00:22:13] Jacqui Brugliera: Well, I want to try, I mean, it's supposed to be penne.
[00:22:17] Mike Schneider: Put marinara on penne. I wonder... I'll put lemon on it, too.
[00:22:20] Ray Latif: Sure. Well, of course you do. The thing with snooze, though... Lemon garlic. Snooze was very much a pasta. Definitely. Snooze is very much a pasta as a snack. I wonder if these are just snacks that come in the shape of a pasta.
[00:22:34] John Craven: Yeah, based on the ingredients, it sounds like it's more of like just the form looks like pasta.
[00:22:40] Ray Latif: It is, just the form.
[00:22:41] John Craven: Yeah. Whereas the other one, Snooze, was more like you're eating raw pasta. Sort of. Yeah.
[00:22:47] Mike Schneider: These are more like a chip crunch for sure, but neither of these is going to hurt the other one. They both taste great. That lemon garlic one's really good. These are definitely quality frenemies. DNS?
[00:23:00] Ray Latif: DNS. I guess the DNS. DNS for sure.
[00:23:03] Jacqui Brugliera: Can they make one with meatballs in the bag?
[00:23:06] Ray Latif: Little meat bites, that's what we need we need we need a Taste Radio sticker that says DNS on it Approval so we just give that out to products and brands that we really like at Expo.
[00:23:17] Jacqui Brugliera: No, it's gotta it's gotta be like a like official, you know, like one of those like olive oil certification Stickers Of You know like every state has like there wait a second all the ninja You know they have the like I don't know what is it like DOP or something like that you know that says it's legit Oh, yeah from the Italian government. Yeah, yeah, or like the you know the state like the DNS seal of approval Every state has like their weights and measures board that puts little Stickers Of gas station pumps. Yeah Yes. Jackie, I know we only have a couple of weeks. We got to make this happen. Can we make this happen?
[00:23:54] John Craven: And then we got to do it every year. You know, we got to do quality control. Well, you just put DNS 2024 on it.
[00:24:00] Ray Latif: Yeah, it says DNS 2024. And we give everyone, so we put this on every bag, product, beverage that we see. This has to happen. I mean, we cannot go to Expo West without, I refuse to go to Expo West without these stickers.
[00:24:12] Jacqui Brugliera: Just unsolicited, you just walk up and they're like, waiting to talk to you. You're like... Well, how would I know if it's DNS? I have to try it first. Maybe you've tried it already. Oh, that's possible too.
[00:24:20] John Craven: I mean, for the interim, while we're ordering Stickers Of should just sign it. Bring a Sharpie.
[00:24:24] Mike Schneider: No, no, no, no. Some of our clever listeners are thinking they're going to make their own DNS Stickers Of.
[00:24:30] Jacqui Brugliera: Or they're thinking, what the hell is wrong with these people? More likely, but...
[00:24:33] Ray Latif: I mean, that's what they're always thinking. Can I try that one? It has to happen. Jackie, if you can make that happen, then... I'll work on it. Thank you very much.
[00:24:41] Jacqui Brugliera: You're welcome.
[00:24:41] Ray Latif: So, what's up?
[00:24:43] Jacqui Brugliera: I was just going to get back to Penne Straws real quick. Reeling it back in here. I do think this is a pretty clever marketing approach for, you know, I mean, it's basically an extruded snack like, you know, we've had in many other shapes, right? What is an extruded snack, John Isn mean, I guess they're snacks made in an extruder. Like a big play-doh machine remember those put it through and it's got the you know There's a big I don't know pride ball of whatever. This is lentil and white bean thing and that's some hopper Yeah, he pushed through a little thing and dried out and chopped and on that order.
[00:25:20] SPEAKER_??: Oh
[00:25:20] Jacqui Brugliera: In any event, I think this is a pretty clever approach to that as opposed to making another puff or tortilla chip looking thing, which is sort of the more common approach to extruded snacks. So, well done. Definitely, uh, these are awesome.
[00:25:37] Ray Latif: One thing I'm not clear on, is the brand called Vintage Italia or is it called Penestros? Because Vintage Italia is at the very top of the bag. That is a little confusing. The brand is Vintage Italia. These are their...
[00:25:50] Jacqui Brugliera: They need to work on the brand hierarchy.
[00:25:52] Ray Latif: It is called Vintage... The name of the company, I guess, is called Vintage Italia. On the back it says, a company of snaxational brands. This is... Love it.
[00:26:00] Mike Schneider: It's fine branding, though. The hierarchy is that the product's the hero. You can see the product picture everywhere. It's easy to see this is marinara, that one's lemon garlic. This is fine. Vintage Italia can come out later.
[00:26:15] Ray Latif: Just going back to Expo West for a second. I've mentioned this the last couple of weeks. We are going to be doing some fun content and meetups with Expo West attendees who are Taste Radio VIPs. VIPs get access to our secret schedule at Expo West. They will get access to gear and swag that may not be available to others. So if you want to be part of this elite group of listeners, head to Taste Radio.com slash VIP and sign up. Very easy to sign up. Jackie takes what, 30 seconds? less than that i'd say five seconds five seconds okay for walking cadence Anywho, we love our listeners. We want to have a closer relationship with everyone who listens to Taste Radio and becoming part of the VIP community just allows you to do so. So once again, head to Taste Radio.com slash VIP, sign up and we'll see you at Expo. And we'll be sharing our details about our Expo schedule by email.
[00:27:25] John Craven: Yes. Top secret, top secret email.
[00:27:28] Ray Latif: In the coming days. Oh boy. I'll give you a hint it includes content that will be shared on Taste Radio and our Affiliate platforms, I'll give you a hint.
[00:27:39] Mike Schneider: It's pretty easy to become a VIP. It's pretty easy to get scheduled.
[00:27:42] Ray Latif: Well. What about the merch? We're giving out a thousand pound gold bars with Taste Radio logo on the top Our legal team told me to tell you that that's not true. That's a lie. That's a complete and utter lie. Are we without socks? We're not giving out socks.
[00:27:59] John Craven: Super soft t-shirts.
[00:28:01] Ray Latif: John looked at me as if, like, are we really not giving out socks?
[00:28:04] John Craven: Like, that's like a tradition. Is that what you want? We can make it happen.
[00:28:08] Ray Latif: No, no, actually. No. Tasterators sneakers that just got a weird turn for the show.
[00:28:14] Jacqui Brugliera: Can we talk about your Liquid Death Death Dust? Oh, yeah Hey, good job, right? Yeah, you're gonna we're gonna all need Death Dust if this drags on longer, but Yeah, I mean this was announced. She's what a week or two ago and Liquid Death is They make canned water with cool branding Yes They recently have launched a powder product, which is this Death Dust electrolyte mix. I think it's exclusively available on Amazon for a little bit. Yeah, it's got Mango Chainsaw, Convicted Melon, and Severed Lime. I'm a big fan of the Convicted Melon. Makes me think of Mike, so... What? It's good. But no, I mean, I think this is like another category where... I've never been convicted. You've got a lot of like technical sort of branding, right? This is some kind of different looking stuff, so... What is the packaging made of? Is it just paper? Plastic metal is it made of plastic. Oh, I don't know. What do they make these out of?
[00:29:21] John Craven: Plastic in it, so you can actually recycle it which is plastic is there's been controversy Small small mountain.
[00:29:32] Ray Latif: I don't know this controversy as they say in the UK is No, they don't yes, they do Controversy they say controversy they do but I'm a little worried about this. I think, I mean, or maybe, maybe this is good for them because like any PR is good PR and they, Liquid Death is like the PR company. I mean, everything they do is talked about. We're talking about it right now.
[00:29:55] John Craven: They have such brand loyalty and people that I think would overlook that because they just want to, you know, continue to buy their products. Now that they're already in the fold, I feel like they're in for the long haul. So, you know, maybe death to plastic is what got them into, you know, following the brand. But now they're just going all in.
[00:30:16] Jacqui Brugliera: The one thing I would say about this that's different is, you know, you're drinking a Liquid Death, you're holding that can in your hand this year, like dumping it in a water bottle or maybe, I guess, a Liquid Death can best case for Liquid Death Dust you're throwing this away.
[00:30:29] Mike Schneider: So right into a dolphin's blowhole.
[00:30:33] John Craven: I wonder if they're going to come out with their own version of like Stanley's, you know, to go with, go with the drink mixes.
[00:30:39] Ray Latif: A deadly.
[00:30:39] John Craven: Yeah.
[00:30:41] Ray Latif: You know, Liquid Death, they started out with, they're still water. They went into sparkling water. They went into flavored water. A natural evolution or extension seems to be powders. But as far as the brand platform goes, where else do they have permission to go, do you think? I don't see much more.
[00:31:00] Jacqui Brugliera: I mean, I think the whole part about Liquid Death is they've kind of gone in places and with an approach that didn't exactly like, I don't know, they didn't exactly have permission to do it, right? So I'd say maybe we'll expect something that, you know, expect the unexpected. How about that? Just like the Dolphin's Blowhole.
[00:31:21] John Craven: Does their current line have electrolytes in it? Cause I don't think it does. Cause that could be something that they bring from this experiment with the powders into their actual like RTD line, Liquid Death sports drink.
[00:31:34] Jacqui Brugliera: There you go. Maybe they'll compete with prime. They could use a competitor.
[00:31:39] 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.
[00:32:29] Liquid Death: you
