A Show About Side Hustlers, Noodle Lovers & T-Pain

0:10Hello 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 with my co-host for this episode, Jackie Brugliera and Mike Schneider. Good to see you guys. It's been a bit, a couple of weeks. Yeah, great to see you. Yes. Yeah, both of you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, Mike and I have both been out of the office for various reasons. I feel like I'm rested finally, even though I'm coming back. And this day after Labor Day, a bit harried and chaotic. There's always a million things going on after Labor Day.

0:51And it's like, the mornings are vicious. Did you drink a few Naked and Famouses? No. Or is it Naked and Famous? You know, I was planning to make one. I was away from the office and I brought a few things with me to make a few cocktails and I never got, I never got to making the Naked and Famous. There still was a chartreuse shortage, apparently. There is. If you have it, you're lucky. Yeah. Well, I got to say, everyone did an amazing job on the show in the two weeks that I was gone. Not that I was worried at all, but John was the primary host a couple weeks ago. Jackie, you did it last week and you were amazing.

1:27John was great too, but you were particularly good. Particularly good. Particularly good. Yes. I feel like for your first time, just amazing. Thanks. I credit Joe, our audio producer, for hacking it together. But I think I did okay. I'm sad he took out the parts where I tried to do like a deep voice, trying to like pretend to be Ray. Let's hear it. Hello, I'm Jackie from... I can get it low. I think that sounds exactly like you, Ray. No, no. I don't know who it sounds like, but I was trying to be an alter ego. Ray Latif, I can't tell the difference. No, that's not me. It sounds like 3X slow down, Ray.

2:08Vacation, Ray. Yeah, vacation, Ray. Raycation. After I had a couple of drinks and woke up very early in the morning. That was a naked and famous Ray. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, I kind of wish Craven was calling in from where he is. He's in Copenhagen right now. I sent him a few pointers, some ideas, some insights about the city, which is one that I love. but based on his Instagram, it looks like he's sipping on a bunch of Scandinavian brew and munching on cardamom buns. The cardamom buns in Copenhagen are particularly amazing. There's one place, this bakery, it's called Hart Bagari. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

2:51Each of these cardamom buns, it kind of looks like a cross between it. It kind of looks like a cronut, almost like a cross between a croissant and a donut, but they're so buttery, flaky, and just incredibly flavorful that once you have one, you're just dreaming about them. Anywho, yeah, I mean, if people are like, hey, Ray sounds like he's hungover, it's probably because, as I mentioned, I'm not. It's just this Labor Day hangover is just driving me crazy. I don't know, like you're all relaxed over the weekend and then everything comes at you all at once. It's because you had an epic brat summer, right?

3:29I did not have an epic brat summer. I had an epic... Sorry, sorry, sorry. Summer of Ray. The Summer of Ray. Now we call it Summer of Ray. Exactly, exactly, exactly. Well, our dear friend, Monica Watrous, the managing editor of Nosh, I know she likes to have a drink or two. And I don't know if she was imbibing... A ham sandwich or two. I don't know if she was imbibing. If you know, you know. Okay, it's an inside joke, apparently. I don't know if she was imbibing in Denver when she was at Newtopia Now last week. the inaugural Newtopia now. Monica covered the events in a recent NOSH newsletter. As she wrote, with an estimated 7 ,500 register attendees and 550 exhibiting companies, the vibe was low-key and intimate.

4:15We heard one exhibitor call it chill but quality and another describe it as Expo West without the riffraff. So... Wow. So, wait a second. You weren't there. I was not there. Jackie, you weren't there. No. I wasn't there. Craven wasn't there. We're the riffraff. We're the riffraff. We're the riffraff. We're the riffraff. Oh, geez. Oh, my goodness. Who said that? Yeah. Well, she describes it as way less congested with a higher ratio of retail buyers to salespeople and sample scavengers. I was in no way going to make this event because I'm like, the last two weeks of August, I'm on vacation mode.

4:56And that's a tough ask, I think, for people. I mean, school starts for folks in some places and it's just a tough time, I think. But I kind of feel like I want to go next year. I kind of do, too. And we, you know, we were cautious about the event. Everyone was asking us, is it going to be good? Is it going to be good? And we were like, I think so. But we, you know, we sent a smaller team this time out there. So we sent, you know, of course, one of our very best people and Monica and, you know, some of our other very best people as well. Mike just saved himself right there. He was digging himself into a grave and then somehow found his way out as quickly as possible.

5:32I think we also sent John Landis. I don't know if we sent anybody else, but we sent some of the best of the best in terms of trying to figure out if an event is good and covering an event. So yeah, now we know. Now we know. Now we know it's worth it. Well, Newtopia Now sounds like it was a good event. Good start to a new show. Congratulations, New Hope. We know, however, that a particularly great event is coming soon. And by soon, I mean September 25th. That is when the San Diego office of BevNet, in conjunction with Naturally San Diego, will be hosting the Taste Radio Meetup, a Taste Radio Meetup, that is.

6:19and we'll be inviting folks from all over Southern California to come eat with us, drink with us, network with us. And at the meetup too, we definitely encourage everyone to bring samples. So we'll have samples of all the products that are in attendance and you can get feedback directly from the people there that are in the crowd. I mean, you're all flying over. We're opening the doors. Anyone's welcome. If you're in San Diego, stop by. It's free. You can sign up at BevNet.com. Maybe make a vacation out of it. You know, it's a pretty great destination. Yeah, if you're in the Boston area, is that what surfing is?

6:54Yeah, it looks like this. Watch the video of Mike surfing over here. Yeah, if you're in the Boston area, you can probably, I think we've got a couple seats left on the Bev Jet. I'm not sure. Just put a Taste Radio logo on the outside of the plane. Right, the thing is, is if we do give up any more seats, then you have to be the pilot. So I'm not sure about that. There's no Bev Jet. John Craven would be like, just to clarify, there's no Bev Jet. Just to clarify, we do not have a Bev Jet. I wonder what the habits of a Reese Witherspoon are. One of the habits of Reese Witherspoon is to just change the film industry.

7:32She's for, I don't know, it's going on 12 years now, been very vocal about the role of women in film and created her own production company called Pacific Standard to change that and to give women leading roles. I mean, her thesis is that women for a very, very long time in film have been the ones who say, when there's some sort of trouble, they say, what do we do now? And she's like, there's not a single woman who doesn't know what to do in a crisis situation. So why in the history of film can you count so many times when they have the what do we do now role? And I mean, it's awesome. So the reason we're talking about this is that one of her most recent shows.

8:15My segue wasn't very clear. It wasn't my best segue. I mean, they gave you a chance to talk about the awesomeness of Reese Witherspoon. She's got this show on the Roku channel called Side Hustlers. The Roku channel? The Roku channel. So you have to have a Roku to see what's on the Roku channel. You can watch that and you can watch the Weird Al Yankovic mockumentary. Those are two extraordinary things on the Roku channel. Okay. But I watched this season of Side Hustlers because two brands that I know and love are both on the show. So it's Faye from Bond Buzz is on the show. And so are Jahan and Tanya from Bruin Kitchen.

8:56Love that brand. Yeah, I love both of those brands. Both great. And so like the premise of the show is that Emma Grade and Ashley Graham are going to, you get a chance to have them mentor slash invest in you. They're investors. Okay. They're investors. Ashley Graham is a well-known investor and a model. And also someone who has a very good command on what's going on in the beverage industry. In fact, Ray, we might want to talk to her at some point. Like all the advice that she gives on the show, just it's awesome advice. You know, stuff we might tell people and she catches things that we wouldn't catch too.

9:31And I think like she's really, really good, especially for someone who hasn't like been in the beverage industry. so at the beginning of the show they have a few brands they introduce people and then they decide you know which brands are going to move it's a reality show at the end of the day but it was really good to just get into the backstories of bond buzz and of brewing kitchen and there's like some brutal honesty in the show and they really tried to help them and then there's some other brands in there there's a there's a brand that's trying to make a chateau pepper hot sauce it's really great.

10:04And there's some other brands as well, but overall, it's just a really great platform. It's focused on women and it's just, you know, it's women helping women. And they keep talking about how, you know, little capital is actually invested in women founders and where they are, you know, in terms of just the starting line. And it's still extraordinarily ridiculous how little people are putting, how little money people are putting into. It's less than 2%. are putting into female entrepreneurs, especially when you see these entrepreneurs and how great their products are. As you know, Faye Bebehani was in the New Beverage Showdown.

10:45You know, she is so passionate about that product. And, you know, she's one of those people who she really defends her thesis and she's all in on it. And they gave her some feedback and you can just see her just like chewing on her tongue, trying to, you know, taking all the feedback and she's taking it in and she's evolving and great stuff is going to happen for Bon Buzz. I'm really excited about it. They talk a lot about what we talked about, Jackie, which is that it doesn't really give you a buzz, but she talks about it as having a buzz and they're trying to figure out, like, are they going to continue to lean in on the whole buzz thing?

11:18Or like for her, buzz is a vibe. It's an attitude, but, but there's still an expectation of, oh, maybe this is a functional beverage, you know? And so, um, they go into all that stuff. But I, anyway, I mean, long story short, I just encourage anybody who is interested in what's going on in the industry to watch this show. I was shocked at how good it is. Yeah. I love that there's another platform for brands and specifically for women founders. I know everyone's just always talking about Shark Tank, but Shark Tank is, you know, it's been running for a while. There's a lot of founders on there. People can be lost in the mix.

11:52It sounds like there's more intention with this show a little bit more and a lot more mentorship and support for women founders. So I definitely need to check it out. And there's a lot of vulnerability on the show too. They get into groups and they talk about, you know, their challenges together and how to, how they're trying to face them. And there's like no judgment whatsoever. And I just think it's really good and healthy conversation that's being had, you know, on TV. So you can see what these founders are going through because, you know, a lot of times being a founder is over sensationalized.

12:23It's like every day is either hell or heaven. You know, when you're a founder, it's, it's a lot of ups and a lot of downs and, and it can be lonely. And it just makes me glad that, you know, John and Tanya have each other. The other premise of the show that I didn't even mention is like, they're trying to help them go from this being a side hustle into their main hustle. And so you see them doing their day jobs too and trying to protect their day jobs. And, you know, John and Tanya are lawyers. I mean, which as everybody probably knows can be like an excruciating job with super long hours as is being an entrepreneur.

12:57And I'm just like excited for them because they found a coat packer and they, they made a formula that they really love that tastes exactly like their kitchen formula. And they feel like they can scale and, you know, Faye's getting great advice and brand advice. And And we already know the liquid is phenomenal there. So I just, just super excited for them. Well, if you're listening, Ashley and Emily, we'd love to have you on Taste Radio to talk about what you're doing. Yes, that would be awesome. Side Hustlers is the name of the show. And based on Mike's enthusiasm, I think it's one that if you can stand to watch ads, shows with ads, you should definitely check it out.

13:34It's worth watching the ads. And have Roku, I guess. Yeah, you gotta jump a few hurdles here. You gotta have Roku, you gotta watch some ads. But it's worth it. I mean, it's a really great show. All right. Quick break. If this episode has you thinking about what's next in food and beverage, explore BevNet and Nosh Insider, our subscription platform with deeper insights from the BevNet team. Visit tasteradio.com slash insider to learn more.

14:01I have just noodles upon noodles upon noodles, and I want to talk about a few of them. The fine folks from Maruchan, and if you recall, A couple weeks back or three weeks back, we had some Funyuns, a limited edition variety of Funyuns where they partnered with Maruchan and Maruchan makes noodles. And these noodles are their yakisoba ones where apparently you don't need to do much except for add water and microwave. And so they added a few new, a couple new varieties. This is their orange chicken flavor. Oh, this looks great. And a chili cheese flavor. These are stir fry style noodles. I got to tell you, Jackie, you're the expert on these.

14:49I've never had these, but they were sent to me. And I don't know if I requested samples or they were thoughtful enough to send me them. I've probably heard the show. Yeah. May have heard the show. I'm curious about this because we see so many new and better for you, quote unquote, better for you noodles coming to market. it. But are people looking for convenience first and flavor second? Are they looking for convenience and flavor first and then better for you second? Because inherently, these are not. These are definitely better for you second. Yeah. Yeah. Inherently, I think these types of products, people know they're not great for you.

15:25Yeah. I think it's a range. Like everyone eats junk food sometimes. Everyone, you know, maybe goes to the McDonald's drive-thru every once in a while, but it's all about moderation. And sometimes you might be craving those and they're convenient and they might be in your drawer and, you know, you whip them out and they're delicious. And then you might be looking for something, you know, that gives you a similar experience, but maybe is a little bit better for you. I mean, these are meant to be a meal. The orange chicken flavor is 530 calories and the yakisoba chili cheese is 510 calories. And I mean, it's, you know, it's 20, they're 22 and 19 grams of fat, but they've got, you know, 11 grams of protein.

16:03They're not that high in one of them's not that high in sugar the other one's 16 grams one's three one's 16 i mean so it's not terrible for you i guess that's not terrible at all it's actually you know it's just a nice little meal yeah i i again i mean indulge i will try these i don't eat ramen and just noodles like this on a regular basis but i mean but we are used to looking at like labels like emmy which is Right. You know, better for you, ramen that has like 20 grams of protein. Yeah. Well, here's another brand. It's called Watcharies, W-A-T-C-H-A-R-E-E apostrophe S. And they have introduced a new line of Thai inspired noodles.

16:48They have a Thai red curry variety, a Thai peanut noodle variety, and a Thai coconut curry noodle variety. These are ready in two minutes. It's a four-step process. You remove the lid, open the noodles and sauce packets, and you don't need to add water. You just microwave it on high for two minutes and then stir and enjoy. So this brand, and I'm sure these are a lot more expensive, maybe not a lot more, but I'm sure these are significantly more expensive than the Amarachan products. But the ingredient list does not include, as far as I can tell, much or any. No dioxide, no sodium carbonate, no, you know, disodium guanylate, guanylate or whatever that is.

17:34And that's some of the stuff that's in the Maruchin. Well, everything that you're seeing in terms of the ingredient list are things that you recognize or know. I mean, I think even if you're not familiar with, I don't know, edamame or tamarind paste, you could probably look it up and it's probably easy to understand what it is. Whereas, yes, the Maruchin, there's a lot of stuff in here that it's kind of like, I'm going to keep it on the shelf longer, right? It's kind of like sunscreen, right? I was having this conversation with someone and someone's like, yeah, this is the clean sunscreen. What makes it clean?

18:04Like, oh, it doesn't have all this other stuff. Yeah. But no, there's certain sunscreen where you have minerals and there's others that they call themselves clean and they have all kinds of stuff that, I don't know, is supposedly better for you than otherwise. But if you can't pronounce it, why ingest it? Why put it in your body? I guess that's kind of where I'm coming from. Well, it's because you have access to it. I mean, the Maruchan stuff is a lot more accessible than a, you know, watcheries. And I mean, I had a conversation, a brief conversation with Monica about this too, where we talk a lot about better ingredient panels, but also you got to think about access too.

18:43And how easy is it to get this stuff produced and into the hands of everybody and make sure people can eat and also at a, you know, at a price that people can afford. So that's the challenge with all of this stuff. And I'm looking at the nutrition panels for these two. You might not be able to tell which one was which if you just gave me the nutrition panel. So, I mean, that's the whole thing about it is like, okay, the nutrition facts are the same, but you're putting all this other stuff in your body. And what's that doing to you? So who knows? You really don't know what any of this will do to you.

19:18But at the end of the day, I think you're totally right, Mike. And I'm being a bit of a... No, Ray, I like your rants. I like that you want the food industry to improve. And I like that you want us to all have better food, I guess like people do in Europe. But the U.S. food system is not like that right now. No, it's concerning that you're right about accessibility that, and this is just kind of an indictment on big food in general, which is something that you guys talked about a couple weeks ago, that big food has such dominance over the routes to market and the ability to influence what grocers carry.

19:57That it's tough for emerging brands and Better For You brands to make it on shelf and stay on shelf. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I mean, a lot of that comes down to cost too. They're selling their products at a lower price point. They have more shelf space. It's going off the shelf faster because it's more affordable. There's just like so many factors. And with these, like these seem kind of better for you compared to other products that they have had in the past. You're talking about Maruchan. Yeah, Maruchan. And it looks like a meal. And if you go into like a college dorm room, a lot of college kids are still eating, you know, products like these because they are affordable.

20:42They seem like they're, you know, they'll fill them up. Jackie just hit on something huge. This is better for you, Maruchan. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Well, this chili cheese flavor that I'm holding in my hand is really interesting. There's a little picture of a box of fries with a whole bunch of chili and cheese on top of the serving. So I'm kind of tempted to try this. Maybe I'll crack this open. It'll be your lunch today? Perhaps. I think you should make all of them and then just do like a sampling for lunch. You know what? That would be actually some good TikTok content. We will do that. Super tempted here.

21:14I mean, like the watcheries, Thai red curry noodles. I mean, there's a few tweaks they could make to the packaging here, but - Looks amazing. It looks amazing. Yeah. You can't have that. I'm not asking for it. I'm kidding, Mike. I'm not asking for it, Ray. But you have a whole bunch of products by your side. What do you got going on there? Well, first, I just wanted to do a shout out because we've already talked about Nomad, but thanks for sending us the chimichurri and the ramen popcorn. Ray, if you are interested in trying these, I definitely recommend having those. They're definitely a lighter flavor than I expected, Jackie.

21:48They're not like overpowering in any of the flavors. So you know what it means? You gotta eat more. I know. I ended up eating the entire bag. It's a pretty good strategy. Yeah. Also, I've got a Natick mass-based beverage company, True. And I think this is a new can, right? I think we're seeing some new can here from them. And this is gutsy peach flavored. I really like this. It says enhanced sparkling beverage at the top. True is really nice and clean. They made some good choices in terms of just like the flavor call out. That's definitely looks like peach to me. Prebiotics, probiotics and vitamin B3, five calories per can.

22:26And I mean, this is just a really nicely done can. Yeah, minimalist. But I think that's appropriate for the name, true. And most importantly, right? It tastes great. All right. My final product for this episode is Brooklyn, New York-based company, Drift Away Coffee. South Asian founders who created this great coffee company. And they sent us their coffee explorer box. so Anu and Sayag are the founders and they sent us they sent us this great box of coffees and on the front they say red yellow green and blue and they hide the coffee information so you can taste without preconceptions but it notes that there are five single origin specialty coffees from around the world right five single origin coffees from around the world but you're supposed to try them before you know before you know what they are so I think that's really cool of course for a coffee dork like me.

23:21I'm excited to try these. So thanks so much for sending. Certified coffee dork. You know what they call that. CCD? They sent us some bags of coffee too. That coffee's grown in India and is really, really tasty. So I've tried some of their stuff already, but I can't wait to try these with Amanda. All right. Amanda Huang. Amanda Huang. Designer extraordinaire and one barista at BevNet who is way better at latte right than me. All right. Jackie, you got anything else for your big trip your your trek up the mountain i don't have anything for my trek up the mountain i'll have to report back next week because i have another hiking test this weekend but i do have two products i have leisure projects new half and half so this is their lemonade iced tea so in arnold palmer and they've partnered with giada delicatessen which some people know as a viral deli on TikTok.

24:17They also have a lot of followers on Instagram. It's an LA-based deli. Is there pastrami in there? There isn't. And Arnold Palmer goes great with a deli sandwich. It sure does. So I think it's an interesting collaboration. It tastes great. All of their products taste great. Looking forward to the day when you can just open up a leisure and a pastrami just pops out. They do have a big sandwich with these little cartoon characters on the front, which is kind of fun. But yeah, their new product here. You have that with a Reuben kid. And then I also have Spicewala. They have their T-Pain collaboration, which I love.

24:56They have three spices. So they're wing spices and this one's straight fire. And then they also have Sugar Daddy and The Juice. And yeah, this is something that they partnered with T-Pain. It comes in like a set of three and supposedly they're really good at anything grilled, not just wings. Well, I think that this is a really interesting collab, one that I would not have expected for folks who aren't familiar with T-Pain. He's a well-known hip hop artist. Although you might not know that based on his Tiny Desk concert on NPR, you know how NPR does these? Oh, yeah. I love those Tiny Desk concerts.

25:36What do they call them? Acoustic concerts, these tiny little concerts in there. studios. And T-Pain did one, it was like 10 years ago, but it is magnificent. It is really, how did he auto-tune in acoustic? He didn't. I think he's a trained gospel singer. He was really good. So we'll leave it at that. 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. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt, And our video editor is Ryan Galang. Our social marketing manager is Amanda Smirlinski.