[00:00:10] Ray Latif: Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in to another episode of 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 BebNet and Nosh colleagues, Jacqui Brugliera, Jon Landis and Brad Avery. As always, if you would like to review us in the Apple Podcasts app, we would be very appreciative, and we would send you a t-shirt as long as you send us a screenshot of your review and the size of the t-shirt that you'd like. We'll get that out this week. Now, I'm really excited for this episode because this is the return of the one and only Jon Landis to the show. Jon Landis, how are you?
[00:00:50] Cocktail Showdown: I'm doing well. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I feel like, you know, the doldrums of summer and I get to come back in here, you know, and everyone else takes time off.
[00:01:00] Ray Latif: Yeah, yeah, obviously, we would typically have Mike Schneider and John Craven with us today, but they are on a vacay enjoying themselves in New Jersey and Maine, respectively. If you follow them on Instagram, Bebnett Craven and Bebnett Mike, you can see all their exploits in those two wonderful Northeast states. Is New Jersey considered the Northeast? I don't even know. Mid-Atlantic?
[00:01:21] Cocktail Showdown: Oh, definitely.
[00:01:22] Ray Latif: Yeah.
[00:01:23] Cocktail Showdown: Okay, fine. Northeast. I was born in New York, raised in New Jersey, lived in Boston. Now I live in California. I consider it the Northeast, especially when you're driving. You can tell it's Northeast drivers for sure. Very aggressive.
[00:01:37] Phish Fan: The only way to drive.
[00:01:39] Ray Latif: Yeah. What do you call someone from New Jersey? Because you call someone from New York a New Yorker, someone from Ohio an Ohioan, a Californian. What do you call someone from New Jersey? A meatball. No. A meatball? New Jersey and I think that's correct. Yeah, I think that's accurate.
[00:01:56] Cocktail Showdown: Yeah, I don't know. I never really took a whole lot of New Jersey pride, you know, live in there. So I don't really care. No.
[00:02:03] Ray Latif: Okay.
[00:02:05] Cocktail Showdown: New Jersey and New Jersey. I don't really know.
[00:02:07] Phish Fan: Your biggest celebrity is the guy who wrote a song about how he had to get the hell out of New Jersey. So it's like, who's that? Bruce Springsteen? The Boss? Yeah. He's from New Jersey. You never wanted to get the hell out of New Jersey. You don't even know. Born to Run is about getting the hell out of New Jersey. He was born to run away from New Jersey.
[00:02:30] Ray Latif: Okay, okay. I'll trust Brad because Brad is probably more educated about music at this point than the other three of us. Actually, I take that back because I know Landis, you're a big music fan. Were you fishing? Were you on a part of the fish tour? You were off for a couple days last week.
[00:02:46] Cocktail Showdown: Yes. Yeah, I went to go see fish in Atlantic City on the beach. It was great. In New Jersey. In New Jersey.
[00:02:53] Brad On: Full circle.
[00:02:54] Cocktail Showdown: Beautiful state.
[00:02:58] Ray Latif: Okay, well, there's a lot of things, a lot of great things that come from New Jersey. Kombucha, I don't think is one of them. I could be mistaken. Founders of kombucha brands based in New Jersey, don't hate me. I just don't know of you yet. Send us some samples. We'd love to hear from you. 65 Chapel Street, Newton Mass, 02458. Send them to the attention of BevNET. Some great kombucha that comes out of California, however, a lot of great kombucha, including that of HealthAid. some big news related to that business. Brad Avery, you covered that news. What's up with HealthAid?
[00:03:37] Phish Fan: Yeah, so I spoke this weekend with Dinah Trout, one of three co-founders of HealthAid and its former CEO, now the chief mission officer. So First Bev has taken a controlling stake in HealthAid. They are acquiring Kavu and Coca-Cola's shares in the company. and a Jack Belsito managing partner of First Bev and former CEO of Voss and Snapple is taking the CEO role working alongside Dinah. Really the goal is to supercharge this brand and take it to the next level like he did with Voss and elsewhere. So it's the company really at a new stage. And there's talks of international expansion. There's talks of innovation into other categories. There's talks of perhaps even acquiring some smaller brands to create more of a platform company under the health aid banner. So obviously nothing is set in stone. All this is sort of, you know, things that may happen. But it's the the way that they're thinking now is health aid as a the quote was a Nike level brand for beverage.
[00:04:53] Ray Latif: A lot of really interesting developments here. Number one, because HealthAid is doing so well. Bright, I think, reported $200 million in annual sales as of last count. And it's not the first time we've seen Coke divest itself from, you know, The Bitter few brands that it took a stake in in recent years. I mean, between Zico and Odwalla, Suja, and now HealthAid, it seems like Coke is really moving away from some of these growing brands. But, I mean, I mean, health aid seems like it's on the precipice of something really big here. I'm a little surprised about the timing. Did Dinah talk to you about why this is happening now?
[00:05:33] Phish Fan: A little bit, and I think the key thing has to do with the pandemic and with Koch's shifting strategy. I wouldn't necessarily compare it to Zico or Walla, which are brands that they owned and were in their portfolio, and particularly in Zico's case, had been seeing declining sales. That was something I think that they could, you know, they were more in a managing position, whereas HealthAid, I mean, that's a decision that they would need to spend money to acquire HealthAid at this point. And basically, it's just the state of M&A at the moment. And when I talked to Dinah, the things she pointed out is this is very much a cycle. Right now, Coke has decided to go inward, focus on their current product portfolio, emphasize some of their star brands. You see them doing things with Coca-Cola Zero and repositioning that. And so It's just the impact of the pandemic and how they had to shift their strategy. So I think it is interesting. It was reported, never really confirmed, but reported $20 million investment from Coke into HealthAid in 2019. And to see them sort of sell that share is significant, but it just sort of speaks to how the strategics, or at the very least, how Coca-Cola is thinking about its portfolio at the moment. So I don't think it was a matter of health aid is bad, but far from it. I think it was a matter of like, this is not where our strategy is right now. Our strategy is fortifying our core essentials, and they'll probably return to M&A and perhaps even health aid, who knows, in several years when they're back to sort of the M&A focus.
[00:07:19] Ray Latif: Yeah, one of the other interesting takeaways from this story and from this news is that HealthAid is referring to itself as a better for you beverage company, which is reminiscent of how Coke used to refer to itself as a total beverage company. They're not just focused on one particular category. But as you mentioned, Brad, it sounds like HealthAid is really trying to spread its wings into other sorts of beverages, not obviously tied to kombucha or even gut health, but just essentially being a better for you platform. I wonder if Dinah gave you any hints as to what's next.
[00:07:55] Phish Fan: Well, I don't know what's coming next. We didn't talk about that. You know, what I would say is this, you know, I sort of I mentioned this story, but we just saw last month a similar move happen at Brewdoctor, where Matt Thomas, the founder and longtime CEO, sort of stepped aside. He's still with the company, obviously, but they brought in Dan Stangler to run Brewdoctor. And that's sort of a similar motive of we need to, you know, sort of take this to the next step. BrewDoctor is another strong performing kombucha Brad On a category that has been plateauing for a while. And I think HealthAid and BrewDoctor are two of the brands that have really continued to show strong growth during this time. And they're looking at this, okay, so what's next? And so in the BrewDoctor case, it's yerba mate and looking at convenience and wherever they may go from there. In HealthAid's case, we've already seen Dyna as CEO laying the ground for that, and the company developing all these different product lines where you have HealthAid Pop, which is prebiotic soda, better for you soda, a different use occasion, different consumer target than kombucha. You have the cocktail mixers, which are kombucha focused, but are, again, expanding use occasion. You have the Plus functionality line, where they might go in terms of adding different categories that I don't know, or maybe they won't, who knows, but I think it was interesting, Dinah said, we might be making a mistake by setting kombucha as its own category when it's part of this broader health and wellness movement in the industry and this broader set of a lot of diverse products. And I thought that was an interesting way to think about it. And it's the way that HealthAid is thinking about who they are and where they can play. So certainly they see a lot of room to be much more than kombucha.
[00:09:44] Cocktail Showdown: reading your article, Brad, which is fantastic. First of all, I think I counted 12 linkbacks to prior reporting, so if you needed any context and anything, we got you for that. You know, I don't say I know Dinah, you know, we've known her for years, right, but I'm not like friends with her, but I will say she is a very singular individual and it takes a singular individual to really grow a company and manage that many people and scale that. And so there usually comes a time when a founder understands their limitations. And I'm not saying that this is happening with Dinah. In fact, her considering this a promotion is what I consider it for her too. She's done a fantastic job of living publicly and like talking about her life and personal life publicly on social media and like being a real business leader. And I think that there's a lot of value in having someone at the top of your company living that way. And it sounded to me like she was going to be doubling down on that on those types of efforts as well.
[00:10:52] Phish Fan: And perhaps, you know, being a little lost in this is bringing in Jack Balcedo as a guy who is a sharp operator and is, you know, experienced as well in doing this multiple times. You know, he was the CEO of Snapple. He was the CEO of Voss. And I think that is one of the key things here is that on the operations level, he's a guy that's, you know, knows how to take a brand and make it global. And Dinah is staying on board and her focus is on the brand itself, on the identity, on what HealthAid is and on innovation. So she's still working there and guiding what HealthAid is going to be in the future. And I think you have Jack Belcido there to sort of, he's run this road already and he's gonna, that's his job here.
[00:11:40] Cocktail Showdown: And they know each other. They've known each other and they've worked together a while. I'm bullish on this whole thing. It seems very positive for me. And, you know, it's very rare to see people showing their hand, so to speak, and talking about how they're going to be in this for the long haul. And, you know, I mean, I guess I'd say people say that, but I would say it's rarer for people to kind of then do it. And HealthAid has been. They're on a mission to really, you know, put their booch where their mouth is.
[00:12:09] Ray Latif: That's one way of putting it. But I mean, I think Jon Landis, to your point, Brad mentioned in his article that Dinah and Jack are in lockstep in terms of their vision for this brand, which is so great to see. Because I think sometimes when you do work with venture capital firms or investment firms, you can butt heads with the founders. And it sounds like that's anything but what's happening right here. So congratulations to HealthAid. to first Bev on what sounds like is going to be a great evolution of this brand. And on a personal note, you know, love to see Dinah moving to this role of chief mission officer, our person of the year in 2019 for BevNET, a remarkable leader and someone that we can all look up to. Now, of course, we've talked about this many times in the podcast, HealthAid, past winner of the New Beverage Showdown. We had our most recent competition, held our most recent competition over the past week, that's the Cocktail Showdown. Cocktail Showdown won, the first of its kind, I believe in the industry, and certainly the first of its kind for us, where we pitted 10 founders of ready-to-drink cocktail companies in a competition where one brand was victorious and won a $10,000 ad package from BevNET, a brand spanking new trophy engraved by our fabulous art director. I don't know if it's actually engraved by those guys, but maybe they hired someone to engrave the trophy. Anyway. The winner of the competition is Wandering Barman, a Brad On ready-to-drink cocktails packaged in these beautiful glass flask bottles. These guys are based out of Brooklyn. The founders are Julian Muhammad, Darren Grenier, and Roxanne Maliki. Congratulations once again to those founders. So amazing to hear from our panel of three judges in terms of how they evaluated the 10 brands that participated. We had Heidi Dillon-Otto from Distilled Ventures. We had Tony Abugenim, who is the modern mixologist. And we had Molly Horn from Total Wine, just a power packed panel of judges. Jackie, you were part of this from the beginning, helping to organize and prepare and see this through. What are some of your takeaways from the competition?
[00:14:29] Brad On: I think overall, I was just very impressed. I mean, it was our first competition, but the caliber of brands, it was kind of mind blowing. It is an emerging category, but all of these brands really have their crap together. I mean, branding, the flavor profile, they're just really thinking about the entire experience. And I think that goes back to a lot of these founders are coming from behind the bar. They're working in the service industry. So they're really focused on the craft. They're focused on creating unique flavors. And I think they know that their target market are the people that are going to bars. So there's a piece of this equation that they're trying to convince those craft cocktail drinkers that they can have an equal experience coming out of a can or coming out of a bottle. So they're thinking about the entire experience and thinking about how do they educate their consumer. So I was very impressed. I mean, Wandering Barman, they did a phenomenal job as far as their packaging, their artwork, the fact that they were doing riffs on classics to make it a little bit more approachable, and thinking about how the on-premise experience compares to a retail experience. And I mean, similar to kind of how they were really focused on having, you know, vertically integrated process where they're creating all the bidders, they're creating Forthave Spirits. There's other cocktail brands that were doing a similar process because they want to keep control over the entire product and the quality of that product.
[00:15:54] Ray Latif: Absolutely. And I think the other interesting thing about Wandering Barman that the judges mentioned is that they felt like this brand was doing a lot to advance the category. I mean, the category in itself is certainly not mature. It's very early stage, but there are, I think, a lot of similar products. And even though we saw the breadth of, we saw a pretty diverse breadth of products in the showdown, I think they looked at Wandering Barman and its package and its approach to formulation and the team itself. as helping to advance the category in a direction that they're happy to see or that they believe will be to the benefit of all the brands in that space.
[00:16:34] Cocktail Showdown: I was at the Newark airport yesterday and Terminal C there is brand new. Everything is like, you know, top of the line and brand new there. And they got all the iPads at the, you know, to order everything. And of course, everything's a million dollars, super expensive. But they had button on the iPad that said RTD cocktails. They weren't even going to explain what RTD meant. It was a photo of a can and it said RTD cocktails and you clicked it and there were like 12 different options of ready to drink cocktails and cans and bottles that were you could purchase there. So it's coming, it's happening. It's great seeing this lineup of brands that we had. We had some brands that have been really pioneers in this category, stepping up to compete against one another. It just shows the camaraderie that exists amongst them, which is also just so great to see brands like Tip Top and Fishers Island that When I think of ready to drink cocktails, I really think of those two brands of having led the way to date and really was fantastic to see both of them participate. And I got to say the judges were just phenomenal. Like every piece of feedback that they had, I don't know. I mean, they really did their homework. They really, I just want to thank them because they made that event really something else.
[00:17:56] Phish Fan: I haven't really personally got a chance to try too many of the products that I'm very curious to. You know, what you were saying earlier, it's very exciting to see sort of the craft mentality of cocktails come to the RTD space. I'm definitely a fan of sort of craft cocktails and, you know, home mixology and things like that. And so it is very interesting. And I really look forward to trying to some of these products, seeing, you know, the types of experimentation that some of these brands are embracing. I think it's, it's very, it's really creating a diverse space where you have room for, you know, the straightforward classics and, you know, the ones that, you know, obviously, you know, you got to have your margaritas and all that, but looking at Wandering Barman's lineup and some of these other brands that are really venturing into unique flavor profiles, different types of spirits, seeing elsewhere just in the category, not necessarily in the competition, but Mezcal drinks and tequila drinks and all these are... I'm very interested in watching the space develop is what I'm getting at. And I really appreciate that the craft mentality is coming to it.
[00:19:01] Ray Latif: Well, Brad, I mean, I can certainly see why you're interested in this category. I've seen you experiment with a lot of cocktails on your Instagram page. You've become quite the aficionado. What is your Instagram handle so people can see your artwork there? It'Brad Avery91. I'm going to take a wild guess. Were you born in 1991 here? Whoa!
[00:19:22] SPEAKER_??: Get out of my head!
[00:19:24] Ray Latif: Sounds like my AOL name.
[00:19:26] Phish Fan: Yeah, I know. Yes, yes. BradAvery91 is my Instagram. Jackie just lowkey just kind of, that's my AOL.
[00:19:35] Brad On: And I was born in 92.
[00:19:36] Phish Fan: So yeah, there you go. Yeah. But yeah, no, I've tried to use my Instagram a little more. And that just seems like the main thing that I do that people want to see on Instagram. So I'm kind of taking my Instagram in that direction. Meanwhile, if you want to see some of my home concoctions.
[00:19:51] Ray Latif: Yes, we all do. They're all great. So well done, Brad. Thank you. A couple final points here. Number one, congrats to all the participants. An amazing competition. Folks who didn't get to catch it. It is on our video page on BevNET and Brewbound.com. To view it however you need to be an insider, it's pretty easy to do so. Jon Landis, Mr. Insider himself, how do you become one?
[00:20:16] Cocktail Showdown: I just go to the web page, sign up, you know, it's pretty, it's pretty simple. We got, we got a lot of different things sending you there. So, you know, we, we launched this, I want to just say about this, this insider thing, we, we had our renewals recently for all of our charter members and just outpouring of support and feedback from people who've been with us since the very beginning. We're continuing to grow this thing and we're going to be growing as a result of this. We're going to be bringing you a lot more. We have a lot that we're trying to build and if you do want to sign up for something like speed dating and you're an insider, just shoot me an email, let's get you set up. We want everybody to be able to use everything, all of our resources to their maximum. And like I said, Brad, that story for health aid was so great. When I'm reading these stories and I see all these links, it's so amazing because I end up clicking on two or three of them myself because some of these things that we report, I'm like, huh, really? And then we have another report, we go back to it. So I was just talking to someone the other day and I want to name names, but they're like, hey, do you have any lists of people for me? And I'm like, I don't really, that's kind of the job of an entrepreneur is you gotta be crafty and find people and find them yourself. And if you're an insider, you're reading our reporting, there's a lot of names, there's companies, there's links backs to other older stories with other names of other people and just start reading and start paying attention and you're gonna find who you need to get connected to.
[00:21:43] Ray Latif: Well said, well said. If you want to get connected to Jon Landis though, that's pretty easy. You don't need to be an insider for that. This is jlandis at BevNET.com. L-A-N-D-I-S is how you spell your last name? Correct. Yeah. There you go. There you go. And one more note about the showdown. We're hoping to do many more of these. The next one we're hoping to put on is in December as part of our BevNET Live, Nosh Live, and Brewbound Live events, all happening at the Lowe's Santa Monica Beach Hotel. We're going full steam ahead, really excited for the events. If you want to buy tickets and be a part of it, you should. because it will be something that you don't want to miss. You'll regret missing these events. Jackie, can you remind everyone of the dates of these events once again?
[00:22:31] Brad On: Yeah, of course. So, Nosh Live is taking place on December 2nd and 3rd, and then BevNET Live is December 6th and 7th. And another plug for Insider, if you sign up to be an Insider, you save at least $100 per registration. So, go for it.
[00:22:49] Ray Latif: There you go. That's a, that's a round or two at Shea Jay that you can buy for you and your team. That's more than a round. I think Shea Jay, the prices aren't that expensive. You can, you can, you can eat well and drink well for a hundred bucks. Yeah. That's multiple nights for sure. Yeah. In fact, here, I'm saying this live on the podcast for people who are listening. If you come to BevNET Live and you happen to see me at Shade J, say, hey, Ray, I remember you saying on the podcast that you would buy a round for me and my team if you saw me at Shade J during BevNET Live and Osh Live. Guess what? A round you shall have. Yeah, there it is. I'll be there. I need to talk to our CFO about that. Okay, so as always during our banter, I love to talk about new products and I'm so happy that the folks from Kram Nutrition, Kram Nutrition, reached out to me on Instagram. My Instagram handle is BevTrade, B-E-V-T-R-A-Y-D-E, and they sent me some of their remarkable PB&J re-invented snacks. I'm kind of butchering what these are. In essence, do you remember the Smucker's Uncrustables? They were those round PB&J things that had mostly preservatives. It was mostly made from preservatives. It's like preservatives and peanut butter and jelly. Those were the three ingredients in a row. So Kram Nutrition makes—well, I'll give you their tagline here. It says they create foods that support gut health, and only use organic or quality ingredients to optimize the athlete's overall health. It's amazing because they really are what they say they are. There's no ingredients that you don't know of that you can't pronounce. I mean, maybe Redman sea salt. I've never heard of Redman sea salt before, but other than that, everything is very easily understandable and defined. This one in particular contains 22 grams of protein, which is great if you just did a workout and you need a quick bite on the go. They have a lot of different varieties, as I mentioned. The most important thing here is that they taste amazing. They really, really taste great.
[00:25:10] Brad On: Do they have crust?
[00:25:12] Ray Latif: No, they're like uncrustables, like the Smokers varieties. Yes. Once again, thanks so much to the makers of Cram for sending this out. Folks, if you haven't had an opportunity to try this product out, to check them out, you would do yourself a favor by doing so. You know, sometimes it sounds like I'm making like a real hard advertising plug for these folks, but I'm just trying to like highlight functional brands, and we talk about functional brands all the time on this show, that do a really great job on the flavor front. Like, I would rather have this than the Uncrustables. The Uncrustables taste like artificial to me. These guys have elevated the PB&J sandwich to a level that is convenient and relevant for the modern consumer. So, awesome stuff.
[00:25:54] SPEAKER_??: Cool.
[00:25:54] Brad On: Sweet. Yeah. So, um, I was Wandering Barman my local sprouts, which is technically Landis' local sprouts as well.
[00:26:03] Ray Latif: Our local sprouts.
[00:26:04] Brad On: Yeah, our local sprouts. Um, and I was just looking for some new products and I found Simple Mills. They have a new line of sweet thins. So, you know, similar to the brownie brittle, it's really tasty. It does taste kind of like brownies and you don't feel bad about it because it's made with seed and nut flour. So it is better for you snacking. The sugars for a serving is seven total sugars, which is not bad for, you know, if you want something, a sweet treat, sweet treat. If you want a sweet treat after dinner. So a fan of this, it's actually made with watermelon seed flour, which I haven't really seen in products. So, and they have a nice call out about that in the front too. That's something actually my roommate saw right away and I was like, really? Interesting. So that's one product. And then I was roaming the aisles and I saw two pretty substantial end caps and it was all the same brand. And it was Wicked Foods. So Carol, our Nosh editor, she wrote about Wicked Foods, I believe last month. And they are a successful Brad On the UK and they're entering into the United States. They're starting in sprouts. They also have a very recognizable CEO in Pete Speranza. So they are launching in sprouts. I picked up these guys, which are Korean style mushroom shreds, which I thought was really interesting. I'm trying to cook more and it's something that I can just add to a bowl, like a vegan bowl, and adds like a little bit something, a little bit meatier to the bowl. And this is shredded king oyster mushrooms. And then this one is actually shawarma style. And this is just one product of, I guess, 20, which I thought was interesting because the end caps had porridge, they had noodle cups, they had sauces, and everything's plant-based. And I think they also cross over from refrigerated, shelf-stable, and frozen, but they're just starting with their ambient and their frozen products and sprouts. I mean, it definitely grabbed my eye. I found them and I was like, oh, so many different products, which usually you don't see from a new brand. So I'm curious to see how they expand into the US. They obviously have great leadership, but we'll see what comes next.
[00:28:20] Ray Latif: Yeah, absolutely. Pete Speranza, formerly of 301 Inc., the venture capital arm of General Mills, spearheading that brand. Really looking forward to seeing how it grows and evolves from there. Jon Landis, do you shop at that Sprouts as well, or are all your products coming to the mail like mine do?
[00:28:38] Cocktail Showdown: Oh, I ride my bike to the Sprouts there, usually for something. Which bike? Was it the motorcycle behind you? My bicycle. No, no, no. The other, yeah, bicycle, no. motorcycle I take out for longer journeys than just up the street. I just wanted to give a shout out to Karina. She makes the switchy that I love this stuff. I'm down to my last few. I'm gonna have to get another case from her. So anyways, Karina, I know you listen and I love your product. It's one of the most delicious beverages I think I've had in the last few years. It's a sparkling lime, Brazilian ginger, apple cider vinegar. It's got some decent sugar content to it, but it's 100 calories per can and it's just one of the most thirst quenching things that I've had in a long time. And you know, when you're thirsty, you need something thirst quenching. So thank you, Karina.
[00:29:26] Ray Latif: It's Brad On the the old recipe or the the traditional recipe for switchel. Is that accurate?
[00:29:32] Cocktail Showdown: Yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's a, it's her own twist on it. So it's a switchy. Yeah. There you go. But yeah, there's another podcast out there that you might've heard of called planet money that this little company NPR does. It's a really great podcast. You should listen to it. So they do this whole thing with this micro face character with trademarking. And it was this whole long series about learning how to trademark stuff in the fine folks at The Bitter housewife. went ahead and trademarked Microface for all applications in a beverage before Planet Money was able to do so. And, you know, made these fun little labels and put it in their, you know, The Bitter and soda product. And yeah, that I just want to give them a shout out to because they're great people. And this is a lot of fun.
[00:30:18] Ray Latif: It sure is. It sure is. Love The Bitter Housewife. Brad, what's happening in your neck of the woods as it relates to new food and beverage products? Or are you just drinking alcohol these days? It's fine if you are. A lot of people are doing that.
[00:30:30] Phish Fan: I drink a lot. I mean, there's some stuff I'm excited to try. I haven't had a chance yet. I'm excited to try Rebel's new products, their own pop, their own prebiotic pop and their stacked coffee line. I haven't got a chance to sample them yet, but I'm pretty excited by them.
[00:30:48] Ray Latif: Yeah, those are brand new. What's the stack? It's interesting to see them get into the coffee business because RTD coffee talk about, you know, plateauing. It feels like there's a handful of players seeing growth in that space. What's what's stacked? What's so different about this new product?
[00:31:04] Phish Fan: Yeah, it kind of puts them more into the territory with like super coffee and Bulletproof. It's got L-theanine and the lattes have oat milk and they have MCTs and mushrooms as well. Lion's Mane is in there, I believe Reishi, if I'm not mistaken. So they're kind of going for that extra functionality in coffee. And so I think, I mean, I think you see super coffee really taking off too. And this is sort of, a refinement of the coffee products they had before and a new line. Also, they're going into that functional pop space, like gut health pop with a prebiotic thing, which is interesting how many of these products are coming out calling themselves pop, and I think it's really crafting category.
[00:31:51] Ray Latif: Yeah, absolutely. An homage to the Midwest, everyone calling soda pop.
[00:31:56] Phish Fan: In alcohol, I don't think it's new. I think it's been around for several years, but I've been enjoying recently Fort Forthave Spirits out of Brooklyn. They make some very nice amaros and very botanical forward liqueurs. It's been having a lot of fun mixing with their stuff as well. But I believe those products have been around for a few years now. So not necessarily new, but it's new to me. So that's what matters.
[00:32:28] Ray Latif: If it's new to you, it's news to our audience, Brad On thank you for sharing. Really appreciate that. Alright, that brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you so much for listening. 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.
