As Investors Get More Selective, Grocery Gets More Curated

27:21It's not cold, number one. And it's 11 o 'clock in the morning. So I'm not going to do this just yet. You don't want to warm Paps? You can check my Instagram account later on and you'll get my opinion on this. It's a beer and a bar snack all in one. It is a beer and a bar snack. You know what else is a bar snack? So Garrett's, which is a very well-known brand of popcorn based in Chicago, has introduced a new flavor. Drumroll, please. I already said the name of the brand. A Mike's Hot Honey variety. Yes. So this is a sweet kettle crunch and savory mix kicked up with honey chili heat. That's what it says up front of the pack.

27:58If Mike's Hot Honey and Gorillaz do a collab, will the world implode? But I feel like I need to have the beer and the popcorn together, but I'm going to have the popcorn right now. I haven't tried this yet. Is it good? It's really good. I took a bag home and kind of crushed it. I mean, Garrett's popcorn is solid stuff, you know, coated in a nice buttery hot honey flavor. It's good. Yeah, it's good. Very tasty. And I guess I should clarify, the buttery is kind of like the default Garrett popcorn flavor. It's very light, which you know how sometimes popcorn can just be a, it's a mess in your mouth.

28:36I don't know what else to say. When you eat popcorn, this is very easy to eat. That's all I can say. I will also say that the spicy trend, the sweet and spicy, a lot of times I'm not that into it. A lot of times I just want sweet or spicy, but the spice and the sweet popcorn is a really nice touch. What is going on over there? He's wearing the popcorn and eating it. I'm going to help myself. Good God, man. Cookie Monster, hang on over here. Mike's been, he's got a yellow can in his hand. It is a yellow can. And that's all we're allowed to say about this limited edition that Jen Orr, the founder of Pop-Off, sent us, which is a Vancouver-based brand.

29:19Fantastic product. 35 calories, 6 grams of fiber, prebiotic soda. This one is in a yellow can, so I'm sure you can guess what flavor it is. Oh, I see. But don't. Okay. Tastes fantastic. Very lemony. Okay. Very lemony. All right. Thank you, Jen. I think we've got two more. She's got us a bunch up there, too, by the way. Their elderflower, their cranberry ginger ales. And that one. Whose flavor name we cannot say. And the limited edition in the yellow can. All right. Melissa's got some limited edition products of her own. I sure do. I have in front of me a few new Lay's flavors. This is their World Cup lunch.

30:00I was at CVS. What? Yeah, they dropped 40 new flavors for the World Cup. I was at CVS with my kid and he looked at them. He's like, what are those? I was like, I don't know, but I should get them. Wait, they dropped 40? 40 new flavors. So this is the Brazilian style garden. 40 across the world. For each of the teams. I'm not a big sucker for it. There's more than 40 teams. True. Yeah. Okay, okay. Calculating. They dropped 40 across the world, three in the United States. I have two of them here, the Brazilian-style garlic sauce. I also have Argentinian-style steak with chimichurri. And then there is also a French onion skew.

30:38All right, send the steak over. All right. Yeah, I guess we'll go for that one. Whoa. Nice catch. Argentinian steak. Are you taking, like, Ray's place here? bringing in the gimmick stuff. Yeah, right? I mean, I have to say the garlic is not... I noticed on the steak flavor, there's beef in there. So if you're a vegetarian... Yeah, I was going to say, I'm looking to see... Is there actually meat? I think there's beef powder in there. I'm just going to eat some more beast. Oh, beef fat. Oh, it's got the tallow. They're missing an opportunity not promoting... Tallow. Yeah. Layses all over the tallow.

31:12Made with real potatoes, but not real steak. I mean, I got to say the garlic flavor is pretty garlicky, you know? That's weird. I mean, is it? It does kind of taste like steak with chimichurri in it. Yeah. The Brazilian style garlic does taste, although Brazilian style garlic sauce, I guess that's not a flavor I'm so familiar with. This is weird. Oh, Science, you've done it again. Great job, Science.

31:40Projo, winner of the 2025 New Beverage Showdown, is launching their Power Coffee RTD into every target nationwide this August. Experience powerful energy and great taste with 25 grams of protein and 225 milligrams of caffeine. Visit idrinkprojoe.com to learn more. As business grows, financials get more complex. We put together a free guide in collaboration with Belay Solutions to help founders better understand margins, inventory, and cash flow. Download it now at tasteradio.com slash belay. That's tasteradio.com slash B-E-L-A-Y to help your business make smarter financial decisions. All right, it's time to get to our featured interviews from this episode, revisiting conversations from Taste Radio's NYC meetup.

32:38I spoke with four seasoned industry leaders and insiders who share practical, real-world advice on building and scaling modern food and beverage brands with recurring themes around community building, disciplined growth, and staying authentic as you scale.

32:59This event would not be possible without our partners, Vibrant Ingredients, Belay Solutions, Next Foods, Corner Market Communications, and of course, Anshin. Thank you so much again for making that happen. Where's Ashley Cohen? She's right there. Ashley's the best. She really spearheaded this entire event for BevNet and made us really, really excited about working with you guys and putting together a real class event in an incredible space. So thanks so much, Ashley, and thanks so much, Anchin. Let's talk a bit about the work that Anchin does with CPG Brands. We welcome Steve Platman, who is a partner with Anchin's food and beverage and consumer products groups.

33:37Anchin provides specialized accounting, tax, and strategic advisory services to the food and beverage industry. They help many of the growing privately held companies you see on store shelves today. Ever heard of a brand called Poppy? They work with Poppy. They work with some of the key players across the industry, including manufacturers, distributors, investors, and retailers, and have been a part of many of the biggest transactions in the industry, assisting with deal flow of more than$4 billion over the past 18 months. So, Steve, you work with a wide range of food and beverage founders. What are some of the biggest lessons that you've seen companies learning as they grow?

34:13So it's interesting. You mentioned something earlier, a word used community. We look at the arts of the community here. We help a lot of the founders grow. We try to take them as early as they can. Less than$5 million is a great sweet spot for us. And we build a foundation for the future. Very early on, we start talking about tax planning, strategy, and building a financial model that will help you grow as you evolve into your business over the number of years. That's how we build a foundation for our clients here. We have a great team here. We have 60 plus people who work with me on CPG, and it's a team effort.

34:49We have a lot of different situations. Poppy, we took that company about 10 years ago when they were very small, and we watched and grew with them. And obviously, everyone knows they made a big transaction a few months ago, and it was great for everyone on that transaction. Obviously, financial statements are really important for food and beverage founders, and you help in that regard. But why are they so important? And how do they help? Well, great financial statements. How do they help people raise money? So it's interesting. The financial statements that we help with, whether the internal financial statements or when we actually publish a financial statement doing our accounting work here, this helps founders raise money.

35:29This is the key element. And when they go out to raise money, whether it's institutional money, friends and family, go to a bank, the financial statement is so important for them to understand what is in those numbers, how to talk about those numbers. And we help guide them through that process from an early stage. The earlier we get involved in that process, the easier and smoother it will be to get to the next level. We have an investor who's going to be joining me up on stage momentarily, and I'm sure he's going to want to know what your financial statements look like. So hence, get your stuff in order.

36:02Growth is a really big focus in CPG. How do you advise brands to think about expansion today? Expansion today is tough because the consumer end is very difficult to deal with right these days. They're very tough shoppers. So there's multiple channels here. We have clients who are direct-to-consumer companies, or we have clients who go into the retail channel, the wholesale channel. They're both very challenging channels. But do what's best for you and be the best at that channel. I would agree. Yeah, don't do too much until you're ready to do too much. Yes. Is that what you're saying? Yes, I'm saying that because a lot of clients who start as direct consumer do a great job at direct consumer, and then they start pivoting to the wholesale channel, and they realize we should stay in our lane.

36:44Stay what's in your lane is direct consumer. Be the best at direct consumer. But also have a grand vision for a brand that could be something great like a poppy. Yes, poppy is just a phenomenal story. when they came to us 10 years ago. And we watched them grow teamwork, camaraderie, community. It's one of the best stories I've been involved with. Outstanding. Definitely talk to someone from Anshin. Steve, Ashley, anyone from the team here will give you some great advice about how to build your business cost-effectively and intelligently. So thank you so much again, Steve. Really appreciate the time.

37:18Thank you.

37:22And I'm now going to bring up to the stage the investor I referenced earlier. His name is Moy Aris. Come on up. He's the founder of Lucinda Capital. Moy, I can't thank you enough for doing this and being here. You know, if you're an early stage founder, raise your hand. Quite a few. If you're a person who knows an early stage founder, raise your hand. Now, everyone raised their hand. I mean, it's so important to find investors that can understand your vision and help you grow. Let's talk a little bit about what you do. You've built Lucinda Capital around early stage investing. What's one mistake you see emerging food and beverage brands make when pitching investors?

38:01I think Steven just mentioned it. I think it's around growing too quickly. You want to have that vision, of course, maybe I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth here. You want to have a grand vision for where you see the brand going, but you have to nail your hero product first. What is your first launch? What is your first product. I want to see great velocity regionally or in one account before you unlock a thousand more doors in the next account. So I wouldn't mistake giant distribution for traction. Better traction to me is very high velocity in a small number of accounts and being pulled to the Whole Foods, Sprouts, the national retailers of the world.

38:40Yeah. I mean, I would say it's interesting because when you talk to early stage investors, when you talk to angel investors, they want to hear about that big potential exit. They want to hear that my money is going to be grown tenfold, twentyfold, a hundredfold. And it's not always easy to explain that you need to follow a process. There's a number of steps before you get to that exit. But yes, that big story, that big grand vision is really, really important. But it takes intelligent investors. It takes experienced investors to understand that it's a process. And I mean, I want to talk about that process because the funding environment has changed quite a bit over the past few years, in particular over the past year, what should founders be doing differently from an operational standpoint and also from a fundraising standpoint?

39:24Yeah, I think the fundraising environment has changed significantly. I was an ex-operator. I've worked at Trebani, Applegate, Nespresso, Aloha for a number of years. So while I'm somewhat newer to venture capital as an industry, you know, listen, I know we're here in Times Square today, surrounded by tourists, but I think the tourist capital, the tourist capital in CPG, venture has gone away. And by tourist capital, define what you mean by tourist capital. I mean, non-native CPG folks, tech investors, AI investors, B2B SaaS investors, folks who are kind of coming in in the DTC boom, seeing a lot of growth and pumping that growth, despite those businesses may not have been as financially sound as the ones that came before it.

40:05So I think that era of consumer VC is over. And as a benefit to the founders, what's left are folks that really know what it takes to be a good operator, how to go strategically, how to provide strategic support to get into the right accounts and be surrounded by the right people. And so in a way, I'm more bullish or excited about the future of consumer funding than I've been before. Well, let's talk about trends for a second. What are early stage investors looking for from a trend perspective today? And what might be coming up down the line a year from now, two years from now? Yeah, right. I think I get asked this question more than any other.

40:39And I think I have an unconventional answer for it. Like I'm so influenced by my experience at brands that no one probably would have invested in, in categories that weren't sexy at the time, 10, 15, 20 years ago, who would have invested in a small yogurt manufacturer in upstate New York, and that ended up becoming Chobani, right? So I love, of course, I could say protein, of course, I could say fiber. Of course, I could say the GOP one economy. Of course, I can say everything function, functional diligence, et cetera, et cetera. But I'm almost more excited by stale, boring categories where legacy brands are coasting.

41:18There just hasn't been any innovation there. Imagine being a buyer at a major retailer in a category that's not growing. What do you want to see more than ever? A young entrepreneur like you to come in and change it forever, right? So I'm almost more excited by large legacy categories like dairy, where Laurel's Coffee is changing the game, or dips where Habiza Hummus is changing the game. So these giant categories that are just kind of coasting along that no one's thinking about, a new brand can come in and change it forever. And I'm more excited by that as an enduring business versus a potentially short-lived trend.

41:55All right. So this is probably the most important question of the night. What separates a maybe from a yes? Because a lot of folks in this room have talked to Moy already, and I'm sure he said, yeah, maybe. Maybe. But what gets you a yes? For those people, I will return your emails. I am sorry about that. You know, honestly, Stephen kind of mentioned it before, and so he mentioned accounting statements. And listen, I'm a pre-seed investor, and there's not a ton of data for you at this time. And so when I'm in In your data room, there isn't very sophisticated financial analysis happening in there.

42:31Sorry to the podcast listeners out there, but it's a trust and transparency exercise for me. So you've told me one thing in our meeting. You have the pitch deck. There's probably additional data there. I'm looking to verify every single thing that you've said and every single thing in the deck with that information in the data room, the velocity numbers, the market size, your financials. If those numbers track, that tells me I'm working with a transparent and honest person. And that builds your credibility. It's such a major way to take a maybe to a yes, because now I understand I'm dealing with a good operator.

43:06The kind of next level thing would be for you to tell me what's wrong with the business, what you're trying to fix and ask for help in the meeting. Because now we're in a conspiracy together. We're on the same team. We're solving that problem together. And I'm picturing what it would be like to be part of the team with you. And so going through that together, being honest about what's going well, but also what's not going well, makes me a part of the process. And I can like picture our 10 year working relationship down the line as we solve that problem in real time together. there. Yeah, I once spoke with an investor who said, if you say you're going to do something, and then you do that thing, that's when you're ready to, I'm ready to invest.

43:43And it sounds like that's exactly what you're saying. Absolutely. If you tell me you're going to improve gross margins by doing these three things. And then over the next three months, as you send investor updates, you've done those three things. Incredible. I love it. We'll have the second meeting. All right. I kind of lied. I said that was the most important question. But this might be the most important question. How do people get in touch with you? How do people get a meeting with you outside of this room? Loosentocapital.com intake form. I see everything that comes through there. It's just me.

44:09So you're getting the decision maker, the only decision maker at the fund. I'm also on LinkedIn. You can find me there and I'd be happy to hear from you. Can we have you on the podcast every week? Absolutely. That'd be great. That would be great. Now, Moy, thank you again so much for coming out here and sharing so much wisdom with our audience. Thanks so much for meeting so many founders. This is, once again, why we're doing these things. It's for people to meet people, people to meet investors, and for people to get a better sense of how they can refine their pitch sometimes, too. Because you talk to a lot of people, maybe you're not going to get that first pitch right the first time, maybe not even the second time.

44:41But eventually, you're going to get it to a point where 10 seconds can be really effective for you and your brand. So, Moy, thank you so much again. Really appreciate the time. Appreciate it. Thank you. Moy Eris.

44:54All right. Let's bring up someone who is also a very experienced operator in the business. Her name is Lella Rafferty. She's going to be coming up to the stage. Round of applause for Lella.

45:06Lella is the CMO of an amazing company called Next Foods. Next Foods is the maker of Cherubundi and Good Belly. I just named those two brands, but in general, what is Next Foods? Yeah, so Next Foods is really a portfolio of brands. We build science-backed products in three consumer need states, essentially. So Gut Health, where Good Belly has 20 years of probiotic credibility. And then recovery and sleep. So that's where Cherry Bundy, which we're going to talk a lot about today, sits. And that's really a brand that's built all around the power of the tart cherry. Yeah, so Cherry Bundy has been known as a brand for recovery and wellness for a long time.

45:43And I think recently, over the past few years, there's been sort of a shift in terms of how the brand has been perceived on the consumer level. Certainly, if you know any sports teams, if you know a lot of pro athletes, they've been using Cherry Bundy for a long, long time. But from a consumer standpoint, how has that message changed? How has communication changed for Cherubundi? The origin of the brand was really a center of store commodity juice. And we're still sold like in a 32 ounce format today. I think there's the theory that, you know, there's grape juice, cranberry juice. There could be tart cherry juice sold as a commodity.

46:17But where that kind of falls apart is there's a lot less tart cherries in the world. So it can't really be a commodity. And it comes down to our processing. We probably could find ways to take the costs out of the product. We probably could find ways to do cheaper sourcing. But at the end of the day, if you want to put the Cherry Bundy label on it, it needs to be sourced properly. It needs to be 100 % U.S.-grown Montmorency cherries that have 20 years of peer research behind them. So that's kind of where we focus. The brands stepped away from that sort of center of store 32-ounce and really focused where we can win and where we have something truly special, which is around the science of sport and recovery.

46:55So everyone in this room knows that one of the biggest challenges in CPG is driving awareness, and particularly on a functional level. How many folks here sell a brand or sell products that have a functional benefit? Raise your hand, please. So quite a few. For listeners at home, I think about 60 % of the room raised their hand. And when you're talking about trying to take the credibility that you've had with pro and collegiate teams and translate that to a broader consumer message and awareness, What does that strategy look like? Yeah, it's no easy challenge, that's for sure. So I think our momentum has come from two places.

47:32One has been really on the e-com sides. We've grown, have really strong growth, especially on our Amazon business. And then over the years, we've just been building up relationships with sports dietitians. So as of today, we're sold into over 2 ,000 locker rooms of pro collegiate teams. So Olympians, pro athletes, you know, collegiate athletes use us every single day for recovery. It's a really powerful advantage. And we have tons of social media videos of, you know, the best athletes in the world in their sport carrying a bottle of Cherry Bundy into a press conference, but then needing to tuck it under the desk because, you know, Big Beverage essentially owns that mic.

48:10And we cannot afford to own the mic. So what we're focused on is the next layer down. There's been a lot of changes with NIL. And those athletes use us authentically already. We have athletes in our DMs all the time. We have Olympians commenting on our April Fool's joke on Instagram. So we're tapping into those relationships and those hand raisers and those athletes who already use and believe in our product daily to create really a groundswell of messaging around the product. There's no question that consumers want functional benefits. It's very clear based on anecdotal and analytical data that people want their products, people want their foods to do more for them.

48:47But telling that in an authentic way, getting consumers to care about functionality is a difficult, difficult thing to do. How do you do that? You talked about social media videos and people using the products in a really authentic way to their lifestyles. But how do you make it fun? How do you make it accessible? Telling that story. You know, one of the insights that we have, and we talk to our sports dietitians all the time, they're a core part of where innovation pipeline comes from. And, you know, what we hear from them and one of the key reasons we're sort of moving away from that center of store 32 ounce is they're constantly telling us they're looking for these more portable, potent formats, things like gummies, things like these wellness shots that we're launching this summer.

49:27So I think, A, the format makes it a little bit more fun, but also just using that insight. The reason they're looking for these formats is athletes obviously travel with their nutrition. They're constantly on the road. So we're working to make the brand really like backpack and gym bag ready. And so that's kind of the big pivot that we're making right now. And I think we're starting to use that insight of like nutrition travels with you and a lot of our creative. We just ran a campaign in Phoenix and Denver tapping into that insight around what makes the modern athlete a little bit different from you and I.

49:58Like, I'm not packing my running shoes when I go on vacation. I'm not like checking the macros of the snacks that I'm bringing on the plane. But these athletes certainly are. And so that was like a key insight that we're using to really bring that mentality to life because they are different and they are special. And there's a lot of everyday athletes that relate to that. I love that you use the term everyday athletes. I think that's brilliant because you're meeting the consumer where they are. Everyone, in a sense, I mean, certainly if you have an active job, you're an everyday athlete. If you're talking about even a mailman, a mailman walks, I don't know, how many miles a day?

50:30I mean, they're, in a sense, they're not a traditional athlete, but they're using fitness in a way that might apply to a product and a brand like Cherubundi. And I think when you talk about format and going from that 32-ounce bottle into shots, into gummies, you're meeting the consumer where they are. There's also a benefit, and if you go in the back, you can see some of the products that are marked for sleep. Tart cherry does relax the body in a way that might help you sleep a little bit better. I know you talked about sleep scores, and anytime I have some tart cherry juice, I feel much more relaxed, and I can have a much quieter and nicer evening for myself.

51:04But when you talk about different functionalities, you talk about recovery and you talk about sleep, can you tell that in a synergistic way, or does it have to be a little bit more, you know, here's this line, And here's this line. No, I think we can tell it as a synergistic story. I think recovery is sleep. You know, that's when your body has the chance to repair all the hard work that you put in during the day. So and I think that's very much how sports dietitians are talking to athletes about it. So that's very much how we talk to consumers about it as well. It's not, you know, one or the other.

51:31It's really both. And yeah, tart cherries have naturally occurring melatonin. We also have products where we add magnesium or additional melatonin to really help enhance that sleep benefit. So we talk about them kind of together. So two things. Number one, definitely pick up two of the products for folks in the room. Definitely pick up two of the Cherry Bundy products. One sleep, one recovery. Maybe have the recovery now. If you had a couple glasses of wine, it might help. I don't know. I can't say. I'm not a FDA spokesperson or anything like that. And then the sleep for sure tonight with all the craziness going on.

52:02I don't know if you're staying in Times Square or if you live anywhere in this area. I'm staying in a hotel where there's loud noise always going on. So I feel like I'm going to sleep better. maybe with some of the sleep products. I think you will. Yes. It really works. Lila, thank you so much for taking the time. Really appreciate it. Thank you so much, Ray. And if you want to learn more about Cherry Bundy or Next Foods, you go to? You go to cherrybundy.com. Very good. Thanks so much again, Lila. All right. Well done. Thank you. And we're going to bring up our final speaker of the day, Matt Bachman, the founder and CEO of Wandering Bear Coffee.

52:33Round of applause for Matt. Thank you. So for folks who aren't familiar with the brand, what is Wandering Bear? So we are a brand of premium cold brew iced coffee. We have two product lines. We have organic cold brew coffee. It comes in a variety of formats and flavors. Then we have a recently launched line of high protein cold brew lattes. So when you launched, I recall you were a box and spout coffee brand. You would have coffee in these large format multi-serve boxes with a spout. Obviously, Wandering Bear has evolved since then. But what problem were you trying to solve for the industry at the time?

53:06And how has your innovation strategy evolved over the last 10 years? So initially, the problem was freshness. I mean, Ben and I, if you put yourself back in 2010, 11, 12, New York, we were inspired by what we were seeing happening in coffee shops around the city. And at the time, Cold Brew was taking over menus in place of iced coffee. And the best of it was the best iced coffee we'd ever tasted. And so we started experimenting, making batches for ourself at home and quickly would run into a problem of sourness, staleness, you know, anything more than a few servings after a few days just wouldn't taste very good.

53:39And so we found the solution actually looking to the box wine industry or the wine industry where they had solved this for wine. We learned that just like wine, air and light make coffee go stale and look to the bag and box packaging to help us address that. What we didn't intentionally know at the time, but quickly found out is that we were also creating a new functional benefit in how the product was used by putting coffee on tap in any refrigerator, it quickly found home in offices in New York City. And so that really became the first version of Wandering Bear was selling cold brew coffee to offices.

54:11Innovation's always been a big part of how we think about what we do. We've always tried to do things differently and bring newness to the category, but it's certainly taken a while for us to build it as a cultural muscle. But the pace has really picked up over the past couple of years. I mean, now we have the organic cold brew lines in 17 different flavors, three different formats, cartons, bag and box and kegs, and then the new latte line and cans. But at the core, it's always come down to really asking ourselves what we believe internally we have the permission to do. What can we look at the mirror and say like, this is wandering bear authentic to us.

54:45Then we look for signals about what we think the consumer is seeking. Where do we think those trends are going? And then we see if we can create something that ultimately we would drink every day because we do, our families do, our team does. So it has to be tasty enough and healthy enough to be a daily drink for us. I mean, it's a really good point because at the end of the day, you don't want someone to just drink a product all week, all month. You want people to use your product multiple times a week, hopefully every day if they can, if it applies to their lifestyle. And I want to talk about how you innovate in terms of format versus flavor versus occasion and how that process has changed over the years as well.

55:26What's driven the most growth out of those three things, by the way? I think if you were to look at the numbers, the combination of format and occasion has probably driven the most growth for us. What we've typically seen, and this is probably true across categories, but certainly true in a category like coffee, which is a daily drink for so many people, by positioning ourselves to be able to be consumed in more occasions, which often has to do with the format the product is in, all boats rise. So if we launch a product that fits in grocery, that drives sales online. If we're online, that drives sales.

55:59So it's all worked together for us. So you take the pandemic as an example, when offices completely go away and our business model has to shift, all of a sudden we're selling to consumers online. And during the pandemic, what we were hearing back from them is they wanted experience, they wanted indulgence, they wanted variety. And so we challenged ourselves to create flavors. And that's where We get flavors like s'mores and banana bread cold brew. And I think our first was dirty vanilla chai. You know, that has driven a lot of growth and excitement. You know, we heard consumers for years asking for cans, specifically for cans, but something that would drive them on the go.

56:33And I think the challenge for us in kind of those first three innovation points of like what we believe, how we can be different and address the consumer need, it took us a while to figure out how we would want to play in that space. Well, you got to actually excite not just the consumer. you got to excite the retail buyer and you've got to make them fans of your brand and your vision as well. Is it the same story or are you talking about a slightly different kind of story when you're sitting down with retail buyers, say from Whole Foods? You introduced those new cans that you referenced in Whole Foods and I was so excited when I saw them and they're like, whoa, this is the first time I've seen Wandering Bear in this format.

57:06But, you know, how did that conversation go when you're talking to Whole Foods and getting them thinking, yeah, this is going to work in our stores. It comes back to that same starting at the core, like what does the brand have permission to do? What have you earned the right to do? I mean, Whole Foods was a great partner in that case. They really believed what we were going to be capable of. We were already in the store and had demonstrated track record in the multi-serve set. And so the belief that Wandering Bear as a brand could play in premium ready to drink and also help push the category forward on some of the wellness goals.

57:40So the latte line, we didn't talk about it, but it's formulated to have twice the protein and half the sugar of, you know, standard, say better for you canned latte. And so that value proposition to them and to us like aligned very authentically with everything we've always stood for. So anytime you launch a new product, in that case, we launched it for the first time exclusively with Whole Foods. We didn't have consumer data, but we knew our consumers wanted us to be in this format, had been asking for an on the go version. We knew our consumers because of the products we've always made were well aligned with the same health and wellness trends that were driving behaviors internally at the company and in just about everyone we would speak to.

58:19And so the sum of that gave a buyer like Whole Foods the confidence to take the risk that any new product has and put it on shelf and it's done very well. Sometimes it's a good idea comes to you at night. Sometimes it comes to you in the office. Sometimes you're like, hey, we should definitely go into cans. The cans is a completely new format for you. And the operational realities of putting coffee in cans is probably something you didn't really understand as much as you needed to before you actually did it. And I could be wrong, but anytime I've talked to entrepreneurs who say, yeah, we're going to do this, and they're like, shoot, this is really hard.

58:52How do you balance innovation with the operational realities of getting into a new format, a new flavor, a new ingredient? Yeah, I mean, you're raising a great point, which is just capability. And we haven't talked about that. But in any innovation process, understanding what you can make, what options you have is a key point in that process. And so we're really fortunate at this point, 12 years into the business, we built a very sophisticated supply chain. And so we have the opportunity to do much more than we are doing. It's the choice of what to do. And I think to manage the complexity that you inevitably do create, because every new product, every new thing you put on the team's plate is added complexity.

59:31And that sometimes often not linear, right? It mounts very, very quickly is to really build an office of innovation and a capability internally around R &D within the company. I mean, what that's looked like over the past few years, because you're still, you're 12 years in, we're so driven by entrepreneurial energy. Ben and I, the founders are still running the business. But for us, a product launch was a 90 day sprint to launch, get it out in market, watch it sell, and then move on to the next thing or just keep running. Like now what innovation looks like is really a continuous process with one year timelines pre and post that launch date.

1:00:06So what that sounds like to founders is a big slowdown. But in reality, you are speeding up and trying to get ahead of these. So there was absolutely a time in the business, no doubt, where exactly what you said would have been the case. You'd be like, yeah, well, you know, it's liquid in a different format. Just do it. We did have a strong sense at this point, what we were getting into and the planning for that launch that happened last fall had really begun almost 18 months before. And that's just some of growing up. You've learned a few things over the past dozen years. It's incredible for any brand to be in the stage that you're in right now.

1:00:3912 years is a long time to be running a CPG company, especially an entrepreneurial CPG company. If there's one thing you can point to as being the most impactful part of you making it, and by making it, I mean not going out of business, what's been that one thing? today as we sit wandering bears 21 people on a weekly basis easily hundreds touch the brand the partners and the depth and length of the relationships that we've developed and fostered over the years have enabled us to punch far above our weight and really accelerate the brand in recent years and that's not just on you know the supply chain side which we referenced but that's You're Anshin, right?

1:01:21We're in their offices. They've been a fantastic partner, distributors, brokers, merchandisers, capital partners. The conversation started with, as we're talking about what makes an investable business and what role can Anshin play, for example, in helping businesses get ready to show themselves externally. trust and trust in good management and in delivery and just being able to do year over year the thing you said you were going to do is a very great basis for long relationships. And truly, I don't think we'd be where we are without the partners we've recruited along the way. Outstanding. Relationships really do make a business and can sometimes break a business if you have a relationship that wasn't built on trust.

1:02:02And I think those relationships start here. And I'm going to come full circle in a couple different ways, which is, once again, we're so thrilled that everyone was able to come out today. We hope that the relationships that you have started here go a long way for you. And we want to make sure that those relationships keep going. So if you didn't get to meet someone today or if you just saw a badge or if you were like, oh, I really wanted to meet that person, reach out to us. Just send us a note any way you can. LinkedIn, email, DM, and just say, hey, Ray, hey, John, hey, Mike, can you make an introduction to this person?

1:02:31Of course we can. Of course we would love to. We have been big supporters or big, I shouldn't say supporters, because that's going to make us sound like we're a little partial, but we've been big fans of what you've been doing. You said at the beginning, I mean, BevNet is a community. Yeah, yeah. And I think we've been big fans of what you've been doing for a long time. It makes me feel happy that we've been a small part of your journey. So thank you so much, Matt, and really appreciate the time. Thank you so much.

1:02:59That 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. 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.

1:03:34Our handle is BevNetTasteRadio. As always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please send us an email to ask at tasteradio.com. On behalf of the entire Taste Radio team, thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.