TikTok Provides Boost for 100-Year-Old Food and Beverage Manufacturer

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1:47Ken Wegner:with Carol Masser and Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg Radio. In the meantime, we continue to talk about the Friday decision by the Supreme Court pushing back on President Trump's tariffs. We know over the weekend and since President Trump seems to be figuring out some workarounds, right, and is not done in terms of imposing tariffs. So we're kind of finding our way through that. In the meantime, it's great to talk with business owners, some public, some private, some smaller, some bigger, in terms of how they are thinking about this business environment. And for that, we do head to Chicago and to Ken Wegner, president of the family-owned business, the Jelcert Company.

2:25He, by the way, is the grandson of the founders and has worked at the company since 1985. If you're not familiar, you will be when he starts talking about the company. They are makers of dessert mixes, drink mixes, and freezer bars and more and do some really interesting collaborations. Ken, great to have you here with Emily and myself. Broaden out for us and tell us a little bit about your company. You've been around for a while. You've seen some different business cycles, but tell us exactly what you guys do.

2:52Ken Wegner:Thank you both for having me on. I really appreciate it. Very excited about this opportunity. As you said, the Jelster Company is a family-owned business. My grandparents started the company in 1926, and we have always been based in the Chicago area and are in the suburban part, the western suburbs of Chicago. We are a hundred-year-old company. We're celebrating our hundredth anniversary this year, and we're very proud of the fact that we've been able to achieve a hundred years. And when you look at us from a national perspective in this nation celebrating its 250th anniversary, we've been in this nation for 100 years.

3:41Ken Wegner:It's 40 percent of the nation's existence. So we're very excited about that, very proud of that, proud of our employees and proud of everything we do in the food and beverage space. All right. So a lot has happened in this country since 1926. There's been a lot of economic cycles. I know that you were not around in 1926, but the company was. Can you talk about like this moment in time? How uncertain is it as a business owner compared to just previous economic cycles that the Jelzer company has gone through? Yeah, I look at the history. We're compiling a history now of our family and the company, and it's amazing what my grandparents and my parents went through in running the business.

4:32Ken Wegner:And just from an economic perspective, from a national and global perspective, they went through the Great Depression. They went through wars. They went through recession. They went through we went through covid. So so much has happened. And, you know, there are always challenges and business is a challenge. And so we've we've done, I think, a tremendous, just tremendously well in coming through so many challenges over over the decades. And I think it's made us more resilient. It's made us a tougher company, one that is capable of handling uptimes and downtime. And there right now we're we're certainly there are challenges.

5:20Ken Wegner:Right. We're coming out of a a covid situation that led to a real kind of a breakdown of the global supply chain. And when you look at, I kind of look at it as a very precision watch what was the global supply chain and global commerce. And it kind of broke. Cogs got out of line and it just kind of, it kind of got broken. And I think we're still struggling to put a lot of that back together again. Will it ever be exactly the same? Probably not. So talk to us about your supply chain because you guys do all your manufacturing, correct, in Chicago. And I'm just curious. Yeah. But do you are you pulling stuff into you?

6:05What what do you import in?

6:07Ken Wegner:Well, I mean, let me let me address what you what you mentioned first. We're very, very proud of the fact that we make 100 percent of all the products that we sell here in the United States and here in suburban Chicago. That's a very important element for us. We have about fourteen hundred workers that that help us manufacture those products. We formulate everything in-house. And our supply chain, as much as possible, is a domestic supply chain. But certainly, there are ingredients and items that we buy from overseas that we are very good at sourcing. And we're able to deal with the ups and downs of some of the tariffs that we're experiencing now.

6:57Ken Wegner:And we're able to, you know, very, it's very, very important for us to have fair pricing for our consumers. And the only thing that we passed along to the consumers of our products have been true cost increases that we have incurred. But what but what things in particular? Is it just packaging or what? What has actually gone up for you guys? Yeah, the most impactful cost increases that we've experienced have been from ingredients. Certain ingredients that come from overseas. There are certain elements of packaging that get manufactured overseas as well that come in here and are converted into finished packaging that we utilize.

7:45Ken Wegner:But ingredients are the biggest element that we see where there have been some issues evolving impact from tariffs. So the latest news on the tariffs then that, you know, there's potentially the tariffs under IEPA are not legal, but Trump is floating 15 percent tariff on all imports, you know, using a different kind of legal basis. what's your reaction to that? Is there a way that you can prepare as a company or have you taken steps to prepare? I think there's such uncertainty right now on exactly where this is all going to go. I think right now that the benefit to us may be positive down the road, you know, so we're still evaluating it.

8:34Ken Wegner:I think it's too early for us to be able to really have any kind of a judgment on this until things really, really settle in with the suppliers and the people that we work with overseas. We're talking with Ken Wegner. He's president of the Gel Cert Company, joining us from Chicago. Ken, tell me, though, go back to your business, because I'll be honest with you. I'm like, wait, powdered drinks, like exactly what is this? And I grew up making powdered iced tea, you know, and that kind of a thing. But I'm just curious, Tell us about, you know, dessert mixes, drink mixes, freezer bars. Tell us about like where the growth is in your business.

9:12And I'm just curious about how it evolves, especially when people think more about wellness and what's going into their mouths or their kids' mouths. Tell us a little bit about the growth in the business and where it's going or where you're seeing it.

9:25Ken Wegner:Absolutely. All of our categories that we're in have been growing. And the category that's growing the most right now is in powder drink mix. And it's in a single singles to go format. So it's in a single stick format that goes into a bottle of water, a tumbler, a glass of water. It's really, really an on the go way of taking, you know, the powder drink mix and modifying your water on the go. So whether it's for flavor, whether it's for function, function is really fortification of some type, whether it's putting electrolytes into your water, whether it's putting energy of some kind into your water, or it's putting immunity into your water or protein.

10:13Ken Wegner:So we're very strong in the functional space in modifying water. And I'll give you, if I can, a quick example. Yeah. Is we just launched a licensed item under a brand, under the Dunkin' brand. Yeah. Dunkin' Refreshers. And we're very excited about that product coming into the marketplace. in six weeks of launching that item. It became the number three powdered soft drink mix on all of Amazon. And it became TikTok Shops, one of the fastest growing food and beverage items that they have ever seen launched on TikTok Shop. I know, I'm looking peach passion fruit, strawberry dragon fruit, right? And some of the flavors.

11:00I have to say, I said, I'm like, who's doing this stuff? And I look at Emily and she's like, I'm doing it. Like big time. And she said TikTok. It's big on TikTok. There's something called Water Talk where people film themselves, Carol, like making their water of the day. And so they put like different powdered mixes in there and protein to enhance it. I'm wondering how much of the growth is coming from declining alcohol consumption. Like Gen Z doesn't drink alcohol as much. Are they turning towards flavored water instead?

11:33Ken Wegner:I think that that is definitely part of it. And one of the fastest growing brands that we've aligned with is Margaritaville. And we have basically mocktail flavors, a powder drink mix to modify your water, pina colada flavor, a margarita flavor, and so on. And those items are just really doing very well at this time. And I will, going back to the water talk that you just mentioned, And we, in the past year, since the beginning of 2025, we launched 25 new flavors of our Weiler's Light brand that were all social media influenced. So we listened to social media. We listened to the flavors that people were looking for, you know, flavors like cotton candy, peach ring, even pickle, pickle lemonade.

12:27Ken Wegner:So we have we were very responsive to social media and the influencers on WaterTalk have just absolutely gone crazy. Wow. Great stuff. Really fun. And look forward to talking with you again. Really interesting to hear what you guys are up to. Ken, thank you so much. Ken Wagner, he's president of the family owned business, the GelCert company, joining us from Chicago. out.

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