A Trendy Retailer May Have Run Its Race, But There's Still Road Ahead

0:10Hello friends and thanks for tuning into 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, Jackie Brugliera, and Mike Schneider. I totally just felt like Ron Burgundy, by the way, because, you know, in the movie Anchorman, when he reads from the script. He's an anchorman? Yes, he's anchorman. I haven't seen that movie you speak of, Ray. Well, at one point, somebody puts something into his script and he says... He just reads it, yeah. Yes. What does he say?

0:47F.U. San Diego or something like that? Yeah. He just reads it. And I have a typo in my copy here, and I almost read it. It's the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food and business. I don't know why I have that in there. Wow. It could have been worse. It could have been worse. It could have been F.U. Boston or something like that. Fuck you, San Diego. Jesus. No, it's definitely not that. All right. I kind of want to kick off this show by going back in time, back all the way to the year 2023. And it was one of our last shows of 2023 in which we talked about the potential for dry bottle shops to thrive in this year of 2024.

1:29I think we had a little bit of a disagreement, slight disagreement in terms of whether or not we thought dry bottle shops, those that sell non-alcoholic spirits and cocktails would do well this year. And it just turns out that it might not be a banner year for these shops, as it were. It was rumored, or it is rumored, that Boisson, which is pretty much the leading, if there is such a thing, the leading non-alcoholic shop in America, might be closing, might be shutting down. Our very own Farron Salnikar wrote a story on Friday, the 29th of March, about this rumor, which began when a Boisson employee or someone identified themselves as a Boisson employee wrote on Twitter that the company was closing.

2:22and Andrea Hernandez, that of Snackshot fame, followed up on it and spoke with suppliers of Boisson, tried to get in touch with the team, but to no avail. We did as well. Barron attempted to contact Boisson, but as of today, Tuesday, April 2nd, have not heard back. So this is very interesting, this development, especially because Boisson seemed to be quite well-funded. From Pernod. From Pernod. They had brought on a$5 million bridge round led by Convevality Ventures, which is a VC arm of Pernod, and also a investment group called Connect Ventures. That's a lot of Bond, Buzz, and Miladi. What's going on?

3:06What? That's a lot of Bond, Buzz, and Miladi. Oh, you're talking about two brands. You're talking about some brands. Yes. You know, I think that, I don't know, I don't want to sound negative here, but the common sense reaction to this is, yeah, I kind of saw that coming. Well, I mean, it sounds like the business is refocusing on the wholesale distribution side of it and exiting the stores, which I think, you know, in terms of like where that category is at, sort of makes sense to invest in, you know, being a wholesale business as opposed to being a retail business. But I think that's kind of what we debated in that episode in 2023.

3:49And, you know, I think I said back then that this seems like something that might work now. And there are obviously other retailers out there that are doing this successfully as sole locations, but building a business that's going to try to scale that at the retail level definitely seems pretty tricky. So I guess timing's a little surprising, but I don't know. I mean, obviously they know something we don't know. So yeah, and during dry January, we saw a lot of conventional retailers or natural retailers having sets for non-alc. So maybe there was a lot of success in that. They saw a lot of success in maybe partnering with larger retailers.

4:27And they're seeing that, you know, maybe we can just go this route rather than having their own retail fronts. I think the future for this category is still bright. And there certainly are successful models for all sorts of niche retail out there. And, you know, if anyone out there is a retailer that does this, I wouldn't take this as a sign that what you're doing is not viable, you know, just because someone's exiting it. We also haven't heard from Boisson either. So maybe they've cracked a code and they're pivoting and they're just not ready to talk about it yet. So, I mean, if you want to look at the potential silver lining or sunny side of the street, that could have happened too.

5:07The sunny side of the street. I've never heard that phrase before. I like that. Yeah. What's happening on the other side? Raining? Nice. Yeah. It's a storm on the other side. I personally am going to reserve judgment for right now on all of this. Yeah, me too. Well, what I would say is that the most important thing to do is to continue following this story, especially if you are in the business of non-alcoholic spirits and cocktails. The best way to do that is to follow the story on BevNet and become an insider. Because that story that we broke on Friday was only available to insiders. And the easiest way to become an insider is just to go to the website.

5:49Go to bevnet.com slash insider, sign up. You'll be happy you did. Switching gears to, of course, a perfect segue, plant-based milk Mike has in his hand. Yes, it looks like some sort of countertop contraption with the word new milk on the front of it. So this is a countertop appliance called New Milk, which basically makes nut milks and oat milk kind of on demand from these pouches. It kind of has a like blender apparatus on it that mixes it all together. If you haven't tried this yet, the output from the machine is like, it tastes amazing. Like no sketchy ingredients in these pouches here. Super fresh tasting.

6:43We ready for a demo? Not just yet. So NuMilk, N-U-M-I-L-K. Originally, they had much larger machines. I think they still have the larger ones. Because these are used in like cafes as well. I first saw this in Whole Foods. They had much larger machines at Whole Foods where you could make on-demand plant-based milk. These versions are, I assume, intended for home, office, and I guess food service. Don't know about food service. This is the birch coffee latte. Oh, so you can make lattes. You can make milks. You can make matcha lattes. What is the base of milk? What's the base of this one? I think this is oat milk, but I can't.

7:24Hold on. I'm having a... It's cold. How's it cold? Oh, I turn it off. Cold water. Because of cold water. Oh, okay. So I'm on the New Milk website, and this New Milk Home Machine is what they call it. Okay, this is the birch coffee vanilla oat latte. uh ingredients are milled oats granulated dates coconut oil coffee yes ground vanilla bean and himalayan salt and it is drum roll please

7:54it's delicious yeah it's really smooth the machine itself is um i guess relatively expensive it's $150. The pouches are approximately$4 per pouch. So this, I'm seeing this on their website, the unsweetened almond variety, which contains only almonds and Himalayan salt, sells for a four pack of$15.96. A 12 pack will run you$47.88. How many ounces is that thing? How many ounces? 32 ounces. So it sounds like it was$4 for about two servings. Because, I mean, you just split it three ways. I mean, I think eight ounces is what I would typically drink for plant-based milk. I guess you could, you could say two to four servings.

8:40If you're making lattes, I think you make five or six. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, not bad. Nice. And you can store the rest. All right. Well, that was a pretty good demo there, Mike. Well done. We'll post a reel of the demo on the Instagrams and the TikToks and the LinkedIn's, I'm sure. But yeah, the output is pretty darn good. I like it. Yeah, I'm going to have some more. It's tasty. You know what I would like in this, though? I feel like there's just one thing missing. Chili crisp? Some booze? No. Well, maybe booze. But I think I just need some sort of functional immune ingredient. I feel like there's something out there that could just improve the functionality of this beverage.

9:18And it is out there. It's an ingredient called Amuse, I-M-M-U-S-E, which is a dietary and food ingredient that is clinically shown to stimulate immune function at the cellular level. Incorporate Amuse into your innovation strategy and help your consumers optimize their health throughout the year. Learn more at amusehealth.com. That's I-M-M-U-S-E health.com. Amuse is the presenting sponsor of this episode of Taste Radio. Hey, Ray. Yo. I found that segue very amusing. Well, you know, I got to tell you, as far as dad jokes go, that was top notch, Mike. Thank you. I appreciate that. I'll take that.

10:02Yeah. Did everyone see the video that the folks from Ginger Labs posted on LinkedIn yesterday? Oh, the mafia one. Yes, where it made it look like they were doing some sort of illegal deal. There was a suitcase full of ginger shots that they were selling to some sort of mob, as it were. I thought that was fantastic. It actually made me think about... Yesterday being April Fool's, by the way. Well, yeah. Which would explain what April Fool's Day is, too. Okay, come on. No, but this was just a skit. This had nothing to do with April Fool's Day, you know. No, it was just the timing of it. Yeah, the timing of it.

10:39But it made me think, I was like, this video is really slick. We'll include a link of this in the show notes. It made me think, like, the investment that this company made into this video was well worth it. It got a lot of eyeballs, got a lot of reactions. Yes, you know, you can do the scrappy and quick and dirty content with your iPhone, but I really appreciated this. I appreciate the fact that they put a lot of work and time and probably money into this because it looks great. I mean, they just raised some money. On the production of this video, good for them. Well done. You know, I mean, they do make tasty shots.

11:11Their shots are fantastic. I really enjoy them. It's fun that they like came up with a creative way to highlight how pure their product is. Right. You know, like who would have thought that this like funny scene would have just really highlighted a feature of their product so well. Yes, Jackie, you described it perfectly because the deal was supposed to highlight the fact that this wasn't, I think at one point in the video, somebody asked, oh, is this Colombian? I go, no, it's Peruvian. I'm not going to mention the C word. Okay, good. Don't do that. We talked about Bombuz earlier and the founder of Bombuz, Faye Bebehani, she posted yesterday.

11:51And Bombuz is a non-alcoholic spirit. Non-alcoholic spirit. She totally got me on this too. She said she was taking time off from Bond Buzz to be on Love Is Blind season seven. Oh. I thought it was real. I told my wife it was happening. Oh, wow. Is that a show you watch? Well played, like, my wife watches it. And so I got kind of psyched. I was like, oh, someone I know is going to be on this show. It's a crazy show. And I was like, I'm so relieved that she's not doing this. Yeah. um that's one totally got me though all right okay so john has whipped out these new they appear to be samosas yes they are samosas they are from a brand called ajis based in san diego met these folks at a meetup in san diego i think a startup cbg meetup but these are basically caribbean style samosas they've got a vegan one and a chicken curry flavor i don't know which one you guys got but they're super delicious.

12:55Brand's just launching. I think there's some sauce that's supposed to come with these two, which I did not include, but what do you think? Oh, I got chicken curry. I got chicken curry. Yummy. Delicious. Now, this is Aji's, not to be confused with Aji's, right? This is spelled A-G-I plus V-S. I mean, it might be Aji's. I don't know. My apologies for mispronouncing it. it's also um i think aj's or ag's or however you pronounce it i think caribbean is part of the brand name as well just caribbean yeah yeah the one thing i would say this is delicious the one thing i would say is on the uh on the front of pack they might want to adjust uh the uh they look like they're bleeding yes the samosas have some sauce on them but they actually look murdered they look murdered yeah but we just murdered them i mean we are murdering them They're so good.

13:45This is, it's a super tasty brand. You wouldn't, like, if somebody put this in front of you, you wouldn't know it was previously frozen. These are, I think, just pre-release packaging mock-ups too. So maybe they can erase the gore, but I would. That's a rated R. I would 100 % buy these. They're super delicious. So these are just air fried up. Nice. You can get some great feedback from us if you send us your product pre-release. Ray, you want something to wash it down? Yes, I do. Oh, man. I got this new... Oh, Bully Boy. Bully Boy straight bourbon whiskey. Like you're hosting a cocktail hour over there with appetizers.

14:21You know, I mean, we'll say it's 3 p.m. when we're recording this, even though it's not. Bully Boy is a local distillery here in the Boston area. I'll pour you, as you like to call it, a scotch. And this is special because... So it's different because they're using malted wheat. That's their key thing they want to call out. This is delicious. Quite delicious. Yeah, this is really good. It pairs great with samosas too for the folks at home. Perhaps, yeah. So. Well done, bully boy. This will definitely help me get through the rest of this podcast. Okay. Can I shift to a non-alcoholic product? Yes, please.

14:56All right. So I was in East Boston on Saturday and I stumbled upon this store called Ebo & Co. Apparently everyone in the world knows about Ebo & Co. except for me. We knew you'd find it eventually. It has rave vibes. Yes. It is very Air One-ish in terms of its product selection. On the exterior, it looks like, you know, a corner store that you would find anywhere, you know, in East Boston, which has quite a few corner stores. But inside, it's got several coolers of beverages and food. It's got a great wine selection. It's got a great snack selection. It's got records that you can buy. It's even got a secret, I think it's a cookbook room downstairs.

15:37stairs. So I walked in there and I was just like a kid in a candy store and I was like, I gotta, I gotta start looking at some things that I want to buy and things that I've never seen before. A couple of things I'd never seen before are these teas from a company called Bahari Teas, which makes two varieties of canned tea, 8.4 ounces per can. One is called the Purple Iced Tea. It's made with pomegranate and orange. The other one is called the Iced Bloody Mary, which is a tomato iced black tea. Tomato iced black tea? So this is the one, the tomato one is the one that I saw and I was like, okay, I've got to bring this to the office.

16:15And I thought I'd share this with you fine gentlemen. Sorry, Jackie. I'll save some for the next time I'm in San Diego, which will be the end of the month. We're sharing. Yes. At the end of the month, I will be in San Diego hosting the Naturally San Diego Pitch Slam on April 25th. If you are not already registered for the events and you live in the san diego or you live in southern california you should definitely do so it's sweet yes i would expect it sweet so it's sweet tomatoey goodness like what's the consistency watered down a little bit yeah it just tastes like tea you know what it is it's like sweet tomatoey goodness perfect you get a lot of the tomato on the nose less so on the palate okay it comes late wait for it still nothing wait for it wait for it do you want to try the the pomegranate uh orange one okay here we go this is the purple iced tea you guys get a crusher tea here i already did just tasty kill your darlings all right bahari teas hit me there you go this kind of looks like a looks like guava juice it tastes like guava juice it's yummy Ooh, smells amazing.

17:27Yeah. That's really good. Yeah. It is delicious. It's definitely sweet tea. Yeah. So the purple iced tea has 14 grams of sugar per can. The tomato one has 17 grams of sugar per can. Bihari teas. We're having my hand here, the latest from Tash, which is a maker of pistachio milks. This is RTD pistachio milk latte. Yeah. I saw that on the floor at Expo West and I didn't get to try any, but I was like, wow, because they had only sold just multi-serve pistachio milk. This is their first RTD product, Tash. Yeah, that's nice and creamy and pistachio-y. I really like their products. I mean, I remember just back in the day when Roxanna brought the gallon jugs in and we made lattes and the product has just really progressed nicely.

18:18I mean, just wish them all the best. I also have a couple beverages over here. But this first one I thought was interesting because we've seen a couple brands use ketones in their beverage. And this one's Kinetic. So this is like the latest beverage I've seen that uses ketones. And it says 12 grams of ketones for clarity and focus. It's a sparkling ketone refresher. This one's blackberry lemonade. I guess like my question is, do you think people know what ketones are? Because I still don't really understand why someone would drink ketones. I know there's ketosis and it helps with weight loss. It's the sound that comes out of a keytar.

19:01Those are ketones. I thought it was the number one in a major scale, but okay. What are we talking about? I think the answer, though, is that that is something that doesn't have the same awareness as, I don't know, caffeine or alcohol or something like that, obviously. So, you know, that's going to be part of what that brand needs to do is build awareness for, you know, that ingredient and function. Yeah. So it's mainly energy or weight loss, I guess, for ketones. And then I also have Jupa Cacao Tea. Oh, nice. Yeah, I love that brand. So this is a brewed cacao husk beverage. They have a couple different varieties.

19:45This is original. They also have an unsweetened and they have one with cardamom. This was also interesting. And I think this is another beverage that's gonna need a little bit of education because I even didn't really know that you could brew cacao husks and what the benefits of that is. But it does stay on the back of pack that it's really high in antioxidants. It kind of tastes like a little chocolatey. You get like the chocolatey notes. It's supposed to be like a coffee replacement, isn't it? Did they put any caffeine in it? I don't see any call out for caffeine. But it does call out that just that it's in the antioxidant club and it has more antioxidants than blueberries and goji berries.

20:28That's maybe a good play for it because all these, you know, these brands that have tried to be a coffee replacement, there's very few that have found that as a message that resonates aside from perhaps mud water. There's a lot of like, you know, date seed coffees and things like that. I think maybe the play is to try to be your own thing. I like the antioxidant play there. Yeah, it's cool. It tastes really good too. Yeah, that was the thing. When I tasted that product at Expo West, I really enjoyed the flavor. More than anything else, I myself need to be a little bit more educated about what it is and what the ingredients are supposed to do for you functionally, but the taste for me was out of this world.

21:08In my hand, I have the beverage of the week. It's K-A-C-E. Thanks, Ashley and Kyle. K-A-C-E. This is their jasmine tea apple. And one of the things I really like about K-A-C-E is, I mean, the packaging is really cute. It's an art project on the front. Does this remind you of Mr. Do? What's Mr. Do? Mr. Do, the video game. Come on with the apples and the, those monsters that chase you. Oh, Mr. Do. From a hundred years ago 100 years ago yeah vintage video game it's so cool i like their little yin and yang too right you should you should definitely try this later okay i appreciate it oh it says juice box that one's called juice box is that what it tastes like it's jasmine apple okay the jasmine is unmistakable it's really good nice i also have a care package from our friend kartik oh kartik who is now taken to sending us other people's products chill dude kartik who is the founder of Dusra, which makes...

21:57I think everybody knows that by now. Well, you know, maybe if you missed an episode or two. He's basically our fifth host, doesn't he? I'm kidding. But he sent this, I think it's probably pronounced Diablo, but it's D-J-A-B-L-O. It's a Filipino hot sauce with a punch, it says. And I'm really excited to try this. Check this out. Nice. He also sent what he said is his favorite chili crisp. It's called Crystal Jade. And I tried it before the show and it is, it's legit. it's super hot and it's got just all the bits you want in a chili crispin and it's it's it's super tasty should have had that with the samosas i suggest that earlier but uh just spicy oh it's john john didn't really want to kick it up to you mixing flavors i was upstairs going oh my god it's it it's that gotcha it's that good and then uh so thanks kardik for sending that and then uh finally also sent this product called druosh which is in this really cool little um what What'd you call that, Ray?

22:51Container. Little cylinder container here. It's yellow. It's, Druf is in like this cursive font and it says it's the Icon Spice. Spicy, fierce, aromatic. It's really a striking packaging. On the back it says 100 % women owned. And I can't wait to make something with this. The packaging looks like the kind of product that you would use like to powder your face. Is that - It does look a bit like makeup for sure. But it's, I assure you that unless you use organic garlic powder, organic chili powder, garam masala, and other good things to powder your face, then turmeric. Masala, yes. Garlic and chili, no.

23:32Garlic and chili. Oh, my eyes. My eyes. Oh, my eyes. The goggles, they do nothing. Well, I have one more thing to share, and I'm going to share it directly. Thanks, Karthik. Yes. Well done, Karthik. I'm going to share this directly with John Craven, because I know you talk a lot about this. I've seen you talk about churn. Churn is a maker of flavored butters. It just underwent a package revamp that looks amazing. It definitely feels like it's a very millennial, hold on, Gen Z type of product or packaging that is. I think you just caused a fight there by saying millennial Gen Z. Okay. It feels a little bit more Gen Z than millennial, I would say.

24:11Here is the bruschetta variety, John Craven, that you can have. I believe there are five varieties that churn markets. Is that a snacking butter, John Craven? Isn't it all butter? No. But I just like to grab a stick and, you know. It's made with grass-fed and pasture-raised milk. And they were at a snack shot event, I believe. I think that's where I tried their butter, and it was really, really delicious. How did you try their—did they give you spoonfuls, or was it on bread, or? Your stick-faring. You would have hated this, but they had a big piece of bread. I think it was holobred? Oh, the holodad guy.

24:44Yeah. And then you just pulled pieces and put the butter on it. Can you imagine? Can you imagine if I had seen that? I probably would have walked out and gotten a taxi back to Anaheim that moment. Can you believe that? I would have passed out on the spot. How many people touched that piece of bread? Everyone. You had to touch it to get in. That's how you start Expo, though. You know, you got to get the germs going. So then you're immune. Okay. Well, you know what? There's germs and then there's really bad germs. I mean, I was never, I mean, where was the, where was the, you know, the sneeze guard on top of that bread?

25:19Like they have, you know, with your face and salad bars. Just nowhere to be seen, right? The Snackshot event just makes me want to give a shout out to the founders of Nara who, they just made that event super fun. They're so cool with their plant-based lattes and they make a matcha latte and black tea lattes and so good. An original DNS product. Original DNS product But I gotta say Shout out This is probably my last thing I say Before I get kicked off this show Is That You know if I had seen that Jala bread I probably would have Instagrammed it And said I'm at the snack snot event Oh come on Cause you ain't no Come on Cause you ain't no Jala back girl You're kicked out 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.

26:11Our 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. 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