A Front-Row Seat To One Of CPG's Hottest Cities

0:10Hello friends and thanks for tuning in to taste radio the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food or beverage. I'm Ray Lateef, the editor and producer of Taste Radio, and I'm with my co-host for this episode, John Craven and Mike Schneider. Well, I think this is a first, as far as I know, recording one of our episodes in a hotel room. Now, we may have recorded in hotel rooms in the past, but maybe not in Chicago, where we are right now. Wicker Park, more specifically. Next up, parking garage. Mike's got to get to the airport. Subway platform. Oh yeah, we should have recorded on the train.

0:47I don't think that's such a good idea. A CTA. No, we're recording from my hotel room because last night we held our Taste Radio 2026 meetup at Pilot Project Brewing in Logan Square. And what an event it was. We had about 120 people at the event and the folks at Pilot Project Brewing were so gracious and welcoming. I felt like the energy was pretty over the top. It was just a really fun, exciting event. and got to meet folks that we've never had an opportunity to sit down with or speak with before. A lot of brands that are brand new to me. Ooh. Yeah. Or just brand new. Or just brand new. Rain outside, sunshine inside.

1:28It was a great night. It was a little rainy outside. It was fun. Yeah. Huge thanks once again to Pilot Project Brewing, Jordan Radke, Dan Abel, Mary Abel, who were just outstanding from beginning to end and really helped make the event a great success and a really entertaining and engaging one for anyone who attended. Of course, a huge thanks to our national partners, the Angel Group, Vibrant Ingredients, Belay Solutions, and a big thanks to our local partner for the event, Battle Bars, Alex Witt, the founder and CEO, legend. What a great guy. Yeah, Alex, thanks so much. Yeah. I sat down with Jordan Radke, Dan Abel, Alex Witt and Adam Spriggs, who's a founding member of the Angel Group, for conversations that we'll be featuring in a future episode of Taste Radio.

2:16Did you guys pick up a Battle Bar t-shirt? I did. They're softies. Yes. Oh, yeah. I put it in the bag that you took and it's gone. Oh, no. Yeah. Yeah. So sad. Maybe I'm wearing yours. You might be. He said he would send some to the office, so everybody, something to look forward to. Yeah, they're undergoing a pretty significant brand refresh and a little bit of a formulation refresh for their crispy protein bars. We talked about that in our conversation. But yeah, it's interesting because Battle Bars, the first time I sat down with Alex was about six years ago. And I was for an episode of Elevator Talk.

2:48And he's definitely lived the life of an entrepreneur and is going through some pretty cool changes right now. Stressful. But he definitely talked a lot about the ups and downs, the roller coaster of being an entrepreneur. I think the first thing he said was, hey, if you're a founder, raise your hand. He goes, if you're a founder who wants to jump in front of a car because of how stressful this business is, raise your hand. People rose two hands. Yeah, two hands. It was a really mature conversation. I think the self awareness and the just ability to look at your brand from the outside instead of from your heart is a really hard thing to do and something that they've had to face when they're looking at, you know, the marks and would someone buy it with the skull and crossbones on the package.

3:32It was a really great conversation. Yeah. I want to look forward to listeners. I feel like the insights that he shared about who's buying protein bars right now, I think he said it was like 70 to 75 % of protein bar consumers are women. He's like, well, if we've got this really masculine slurping package. Yeah. I'm holding their old package in my hand and they got a skull with a lightning bolt going through it. I've seen their new packaging. It definitely skews more feminine. That one gives me Death Wish coffee vibes. Yeah, it does. I mean, he's a Navy guy. It looks like something you could pull out of your pack.

4:06It's a cool logo. Yeah, I like it. I've always been a fan. Yeah. One thing I did before the event, I got here, Davey, earlier, and there's a Foxtrot Market right around the corner from our hotel here. And I was so high on Foxtrot like everyone else was about three, four years ago. So Mike Lovatola, who's one of the co-founders and the CEO of the company, I mean, that was just one of the most hyped companies out there. It all kind of came falling down pretty quickly. Not exactly sure what happened, but just for context, Foxtrot was an elevated convenience store that would deliver products to folks in the Chicago area in a pretty quick amount of time.

4:48I don't know if it was like an hour, but it was quick delivery, premium products, premium selection and just intended to be something along the lines of, and these are my words, the Erewhon of convenience stores. And after they shut down, they were acquired out of foreclosure for, if you can believe this,$2.2 million by a venture capital firm called Further Point Enterprises. So Mike Lavatola came back to spearhead that relaunch, and they've got a handful of stores back in the Chicagoland area, including the one here in Wicker Park. The selection is pretty amazing. They've got an Erewhon-ish type selection of beverages, snacks, frozen meals.

5:31So when you go in there, it definitely feels like what you would have expected from the old Foxtrot. Gonna head over there after this. Nice, nice. So I grammed as much as I could gram when I was at the store. You were a gramming machine. A gramming machine. And a couple of the brands that I grammed showed up at our event last night. Well, the founders brought their brands. One of them includes a company called Five Corners Beverage Company. The co-founder is Benno Nelson. Of course. And they have three different products. We've got two here. The one I tried, and this is pretty darn amazing if you haven't tried this yet, is their salted lemonade variety.

6:16So Five Corners describes itself as the non-alcoholic sparkling cocktail brand. And they feature the five foundational tastes, salty, sour, savory, bitter, and sweet. Sometimes all at once. And draw inspiration from the five corners of the globe, north, south, east, west, and home. Hence, Five Corners Beverage Company. Could you try this yet? We tried it last night. We tried it last night, yeah. There's also the one you don't have on the table here. So you've got the salted lemonade in your hand, and then you've got the sangrita, which is tomato, chili powder, and citrus. It's almost like somebody spilled their orange juice in your tomato juice.

6:56And that one's really interesting. And then there's a pickle variety, too. The pickleback. The pickleback, yeah. It rhymes with nickelback. I never thought I'd like something that rhymes with nickelback. So out of all the stuff I grammed on Wednesday, the five-corner salted lemonade got the most engagement. Everyone wants to know what this is all about. So this one has citrus, black salt, and cumin. Darren Revell messaged me and he said, you just stick with salted lemonade. Why'd you add the cumin? He's one of those guys that doesn't like the cumin. I'm going to try this again. You guys mind if I open this?

7:24Go for it, Ray. Okay, I'm going to crack this open. Lemonade's so hot right now between, you know, you got salted lemonade in your hand there for five corners. You got Sean from Goldie out there running around with his lemonade. John has to look away because I almost got lemonade all over, not just the laptop, but the Zoomer as well. Yeah. So the thing that really just blows your mind is the aroma on this. It smells like you're walking into a Middle Eastern Mediterranean grocery store. You know, when you pop into those places and the spice just hits you as soon as you open the door. Yeah, I love that.

7:54That is this beverage. It's definitely different. Yeah, it's really complex. Lots of different flavors. Fantastic stuff. This reminds me of the amount of cumin in the initial Talkback shortbread cookies. Remember when we were going to have the cumin variety and it's like a lot of cumin. So I told Ben, I was like, I have not tasted a product like this. I've never tasted a beverage like this. And I really think he's on the right track in terms of the formulations and the varieties that they're selling. Because you think about the non-alcoholic cocktail space and it's so many of the same flavors.

8:30It's just the same standard, margarita, mule. and if you are looking for complexity, like if you're looking for a cocktail that has a lot of different ingredients that isn't a same cookie cutter type of product, if you want true differentiation, I think you gotta go a little off the beaten path, sometimes way off the beaten path. This one's way off that path, for sure. Yeah. Hey listeners, as of August 13th, lots of new jobs are live at cpgjobs.com, including from North American Sake Brewery and Topa Topa Brewing. Allagash Brewing, Serene Beer, and Owls Brew join the rush. Great companies, hot opportunities, so find your next move and apply now.

9:14Now, got a role to fill? Reach a self-selected CPG audience and cut wrong fit screening with operators, sales leaders, supply chain pros, and retail buyers who know the category. Post your job at cpgjobs.com today. Post the role. Use code TASTERADIO26. Save money on your listing. Your inbox should reflect the parts of CPG that matter to you. Choose from BevNet's seven free newsletters covering beverage, food, beer, spirits, careers, education, and more. Sign up and select your favorites at cpgmedia.com slash newsletter. another brand that i saw at foxtrot is a brand called air and i'm completely mispronouncing this but it's a i r e described as a mexican sparkling tonic hector diaz is the founder of the company and i met him last night and man oh man this product blew me away they have a couple different varieties i'm forgetting which the second one is but this is their hibiscus con limon crack that open mic if you haven't already can do ray oh a little fizzy little fizzy how'd we do we're doing okay it's rich yeah so this reminds me sort of as a guia type product but also salted also salted but it is a little bit more complex a little less carbonated and it smells like chocolate doesn't it you get those yeah you get like some serious chocolate vibes here because there is natural chocolate flavor in it especially pomegranate juice and prickly pear juice and hibiscus extract yeah also pretty nice kind of interesting four corners and this air brand however we pronounce it are both in 8.4 ounce kind of slim cans.

11:13Not exactly a super popular size. Also wonder about just value proposition compared to 12 ounce or whatever that it probably competes with. I think it speaks to what consumers are expecting out of flavor. You know, the smaller varieties are more in line, I think, with smaller cocktails, right? Right. You don't want a 16 ounce can of cocktails, do you? Well, no, but I mean, this, you know, it's positioned as a Mexican sparkling tonic. Yeah, but mostly consumed as a cocktail, I would assume. I wonder. I mean, I don't know if you tried their mango flavor. The mango one is phenomenal. I mean, no offense to the hibiscus cone limon, but the mango variety with chili is like, I mean, that stuff's phenomenal.

11:55I honestly, I thought I had some here. I thought I brought a can back. You probably drank it last night. Maybe I did in a haze. I probably drank it last night. But yeah, the mango con chili, I hugged. I hugged Hector. It was so damn good. It is one of the best beverages I've had all year. Somebody pointed out, I mean, I grammed it last night, too, just like you did, Ray. And somebody popped into my DMs and said something I wasn't expecting, which was, the name needs work, because who wants to pay for air? That's cute. Another product that I was really surprised to see at Foxtrot, and I thought was a revamp of a brand that we know and love, is a brand called Ruby.

12:38Ruby comes in a 12-ounce long-neck glass bottle. It's described as fine hibiscus tea. Front of pack is ruby in cursive, vertically laid out on the label. I could have sworn this was Noah Wunsch's brand. Yeah, I think he called it quits a while back. But that's like deja vu all over again. Yeah, I don't know if they bought the assets or the IP. Probably not. Yeah. So the ingredients in this are water, honey, hibiscus, ginger, and pink salt. That's it. I mean, hibiscus, I mean, it's kind of like rooibos tea. Like every once in a while we see a brand that tries to do it. And I don't know, you know, it's sort of a polarizing flavor where you're all in on hibiscus.

13:21Like you can't make a skew, a flavored skew that's going to not taste like hibiscus. This seems like it's going for more of like a premium drinker. I mean, that's the vibe it gives off with the glass bottle and the kind of script logo. So who knows? I was expecting some carbonation. There's none in here. It's... Yeah, it does look like a carbonated format. Yeah, it's a steel beverage. And I don't know what the day part usage is when you would be drinking this. I mean, it's classic use was like, it's an herbal tea. You know, if you want tea without caffeine. Yeah. Kind of on the sweeter side. It's got 110 calories, 20 something added grams of sugar.

14:01you know kind of full calorie tea but yeah it's good stuff yeah well for me let's go through a couple more products that i got from foxtrot bar bet oh yes bar bet is a flavored sparkling water brand made in canada i saw two varieties this one is their love bite tart pink grapefruit and a cheeky bite of ginger with earthy juniper 40 calories per can this is a 12 ounce wide body can. You don't really see a lot of 40-calorie sparkling waters. This one has 6 grams of sugar. So I might think about this more as a soda than a sparkling water, but let's take a taste. Beautiful packaging. People on the Grams were in love with this beautiful packaging of Barbet.

14:42It almost looks like a... A watermelon. It has Barbasol vibes. It's our Deco Barbasol. You know? That's funny, Ray. Our Deco Barbasol. Today and moments that date Ray. Yeah. You can look up an old Barbasol can and you'll know what I'm talking about. For people who like pain while shaving. It smells amazing. The aroma on this, the grapefruit is so, so beautiful on the nose. This feels like kind of a sibling of like a spindrift almost. Yeah. You would never know there's 40 calories in this. It tastes like and it acts like a sparkling water. It's good. Bubbles in Canada. It's from Canada. Yeah. All right.

15:19We got one more beverage and we got three snackish type products. Which one do you want to go with? You want to go with beverage? I tried beanies last night. Yeah, same. Stuff is great. Especially the wasabi one. Coated soybeans. Coated soybeans. Can't even speak. I did not get that at Foxtrot. We got those at the event last night. Beanies is the maker of coated soybeans, which are, it's very easy to say. What are they coated with? This one is coated with rice flour. It's like the original flavor, but they had also like one that was coated with cinnamon. There's nori. Okay. Like nori seaweed. That one was awesome.

15:52They're crunchy. These reminded me, just the package reminded me of Bieta's edamame products. I think we talked about that while we were crunching these last night, too. And I think it's a really good analog. They're different, though. They're a different product, but they behave kind of similarly. Yeah. Same use occasion and stuff. Yeah. I saw this protein bar at Foxtrot. It's called Unhinged. It is a caffeine plus protein bar. First I've ever seen. really standout packaging. It's in this shiny silver wrap. And this is their chocolate and coffee variety. I have not tried this, but again, got some messages on the gram talking about how people love this product.

16:39All it needs is electrolytes. Perfect Jim bro. You know, it's funny. We haven't seen more of these, really. Right? Because we've seen caffeine and protein in beverage. Yeah. Coffee. There are caffeine bars out there. Which ones? Caffeine and protein? Caffeine and protein. I'm sure there are. Well, there is one in my hand. There it is, Ray. I'm sure it's not the first. It may not be the first, but I'm surprised we haven't been seeing more of these out there. Again, given that we've seen so much caffeine and protein. Caffeine and protein. We're going to get some Honey Mamas Stumptown collab from Christy Goldsby soon.

17:14She's sending it to us. Is that protein, though? Yeah, it's a protein bar. There's protein in Honey Mamas? They've got a protein line, Ray. Haven't you seen their protein line? Where have you been? You haven't seen Honey Mama's Protein? To be fair, I love that brand, but I am not the number one super fan like the guy I'm looking at right now. I definitely hoard it. Keep it away from you. You love it and you want to caress it. Cuddle it. Yes. Mostly I want to eat it, right? Yeah. I was going to say it's your baby. No. But it's not your chai baby. Wow. Great segue. You like that segue? Okay. I'm saying chai baby because I'm holding a product in my hand.

17:46I guess it's called chai baby. The maker of the product is Freeman House. And this is a micro-brewed chai that comes in a 12-ounce plastic bottle. And it's made with Oatly. Literally, the Oatly brand is on the front of pack here. Yeah, that seems kind of unnecessary in 2026. Why is that? I don't know. I mean, at this point, do we view Oatly as the same premium thing that we once did? I don't think so. Yeah, but maybe they're getting some sort of deal on the Oatly. Powered by Oatly. Maybe they're getting a deal by putting the Oatly logo on the front. Either way. I mean, it's, again, I would just question if that's a thing that helps or, I don't know, it just sort of immediately gives vibes that it's flavored milk, you know, which I guess technically, sure, a nice chai kind of is, but it just feels like it de-emphasizes the actual chai kind of quick to me.

18:38Yeah. Chai latte. Subconsciously, at least. Well, we haven't tried it yet. You can actually drink this on its own or you can heat it up. Does it give you permission to add alcohol, too? It's possible. It's also available as a concentrate, according to the pack. You're 160 calories, 19 grams of sugar, including 13 grams of added sugar. Let's talk more drinking. Come on. All right. Hold on. Very good. Yeah, I mean, that's a good, solid bottle of chive. Definitely tastes pretty fresh, I would say. Yeah. I don't know if there's a quick expiration date on this one, and I didn't even shake it up that well.

19:14I mean, you can see bits of what looks like vanilla bean in the bottom of it. Yeah, and on top of the yellow screw cap here, it says 9-1. So this is a pretty perishable product. I think the expiration date is, what, a little over two weeks from now? Yeah. Good stuff. It is good stuff. Last one is a brand called Jilly's Jerky, a protein-packed serious snack. I think they have a lot of taglines here, but this one is no-joke beef jerky. A protein-packed series snack, no joke, beef jerky. Jilly's jerky, their logo looks like a smiley face, but there's two J's for eyes. Look at that sassy little Jilly on the back, too.

19:54Yeah, as a boy. Get a load of that. Yeah, with his dad. There's Jilly, and there's Donnie. There's his dad. And it looks like a photo from maybe 1989? I'm going to go with 1989. Beef, chipotle pepper, distilled vinegar, water, red pepper flakes, salt, onion, garlic spices. Love the ingredient list. Ready to try some beef there, Mike? Beef and chai are natural combination. Yeah, beef and chai. I can't wait. Okay. We're going to save the sampling of this for the next episode. Yeah, let's do that in the studio. Yeah. I imagine it's only a matter of time before we see a new brand called Hall Pass at Foxtrot.

20:32Currently, Foxtrot is sold exclusively or will be sold exclusively at Walmart. Who makes this Hall Pass product and what is it, Mike? Do you know? I'm going to answer that question for you. Thanks, Ray. It happens to be the newest brand from RX Bar and David founder, Peter Rahal. Yes. So, Hall Pass makes Better For You, classically inspired chocolate bars. So, they have peanut butter cups, chocolatey candy pieces, and peanut cream crispy wafers. So, peanut cups, I think we can figure out what that is. Chocolatey candy pieces. I might know what those are. and peanut cream crispy wafers. What would that be?

21:13Okay. So I was a little surprised by this, but I guess it's a natural extension because each single-serve package has 70 calories and one gram of sugar, kind of in line with what David is doing in that the protein bars have 150 calories and I think, is it zero grams of sugar? Seemingly the right brand for the right time for the right moments. Haven't had a chance to taste these yet, but there's a lot of hype already about them launching once again in Walmart on August 29th. Yeah, you got a little bit of flack on Twitter for posting what appears to be an AI image. Why do you get flack for that?

21:56Because there's blurry text on the image promoting the launch of that. Oh, okay. Because people want some designer to render the package, at least. Well, a certain someone that you mentioned earlier, a.k.a. Darren Rovell, was in a little bit of a back and forth with Peter. Really? Yes. He does that. Darren was like, looks cool, but why not just hire a designer to actually do the image you're sharing? And Peter basically claimed it was kind of intentional for rage bait purposes. You know what? That also sounds like Peter. You know, hey, whatever. It does. Both smart guys. They both know what they're doing.

22:35So, yeah. $1.82 per bar. Would you buy that for$1.82, Mike? I'd try for$1.82. You'd try it. Yeah. Okay. Well, you don't know how it tastes yet, so how can you say if you'd buy it again? Right. Yeah. I've really enjoyed Chicago. I hate leaving the city so soon. This is just a fantastic, thriving place. And the CPG scene here is just immense and amazing. And if we didn't get a chance to talk at length yesterday, please reach out to us here at BevNet Nosh and Taste Radio in Brewbound. We want to continue the conversation. And for folks who couldn't make the event, just continue to stay in touch. We definitely missed you, but we definitely want to talk to you.

23:13And we want to see if we can help you build your brand, scale your brand in any way possible. And that also goes for folks that will be attending our upcoming events in San Diego and San Francisco, San Diego on September 15th, San Francisco on September 17th, and London on October 21st. If you're interested in attending any of those events, head to tasteradio.com slash meetups. Thank you once again, and we'll see you at the next event. 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 Cratchy.

23:54Our technical director is Joshua Pratt. And our video editor is Ryan Galang. Our social marketing manager is Amanda Smirlinski. 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 bevnet taste radio 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