Bachan's $400M Exit Explained. And, A Wellness Crisis Unpacked.

0:10Hello, dear 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-hosts, Jackie Brugliera, Mike Schneider, and Melissa Travers. In this episode, we meet up with Manisha Mean, the VP of marketing for organic fruit snack brand Soli, who explains how the company's marketing, growth, and innovation strategies have helped its products surge on shelf. Love solely. Great brand. I first saw that brand in a Whole Foods and I saw their jerky strips and I've been in aficionado since.

0:51Is that the right word? Aficionado? I guess so. I would say so. You could also say big fan. Yeah. Super fan. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to go with super fan. John's not here to correct me. Melissa's sitting in his seat. So welcome, Melissa. Thank you. I've been working on my Craven impression. I think at this point I call you a numpty. Correct. Spot on. Well done, Melissa. Or a pillock. Well done. Now you'll be able to replace them at our events, our meetups throughout the year. And I'll be on stage and you'll just be shaking your head at how ridiculous I am. To be fair, you only get 10 % of the numpty.

1:25I get like 90%. That's true. That's true. Yes, indeed. We're going to be back on the road heading to Miami. Wednesday, February 18th is our first meetup of the year. It is a podcast, live podcast, networking event. You can network. You can listen. You can imbibe, eat, and BYOS, which means bring your own samples. If any of you have attended our meetups over the past year and a half, you'll know that they are raucous events. What are you laughing at, Mike? I'm really glad you clarified that BYOS isn't bring your own squid. Bring your own squid. Okay. Let's continue. He's cracking jokes in his head over there.

2:02He is. He really is. He's like dying over here. It doesn't exclude squid, though, if you're a squid snacker. Please don't bring a big bucket of squid. So the event in Miami is going to be held at Casa La Rubia, which is in the city's Wynwood neighborhood, 5 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. As always, we would love to see you. We would love it even more if you could register for the event. Go to Tasteradio.com slash events slash Miami. Pretty easy. Tasteradio.com slash events slash Miami. We would love to see you there. Now, this is not the only meetup that we have scheduled for the year. We've got a bunch more planned.

2:39We're planning to be in New York, in Austin and Chicago later this year. But we've got confirmed events for the fall. We're going to be in San Diego on September 15th for an event in which we're aligned with the wonderful organization Naturally San Diego. Two days later, we'll be in San Francisco, downtown. I'm really excited. San Francisco last year was just in... Wasn't that one of your most memorable events? Yeah, you know, because I wasn't there, as you know. Oh, you weren't there. Once again. I really forgot. Always turns to me and he's like, Mike, wasn't that the best event? And I'm like, thanks, Ray.

3:15I forgot you weren't there. It was really good. That was a really good event. I think he's trying to say, so good. Because you weren't there. The best one yet. Anywho, I'm excited to be back in San Francisco. And of course, we'll round out the year in London, October 21st, back at Trip HQ in Notting Hill. You can get all the details and all these events at tasteradio.com slash events. Melissa, you're going to be joining us for a lot of these events, not for Miami. I'm a little bummed out about that. Me too. It is school vacation week, so you've got your own obligations. Yes, yes. Yes, we've got some skiing planned, but I can't wait to join for the others.

3:54Yeah, a lot more. New York, Austin, Chicago, San Diego, San Francisco, and London. And we do have limited opportunities for sponsors, partners, additional cities. So if you are looking to get involved, head to tasteradio.com slash events and hit us up. Absolutely, Jackie. Definitely looking for some great partners for these events. If you're interested, just send us a note or just email us directly, ask at tasteradio.com. Big, big, big news of the week. Bachans. Everyone knows Bachans, a Japanese barbecue sauce brand known for its delicious, authentic, clean label products. I'm reading from the press release.

4:32But it's exactly what I just said. Has been acquired. The company that acquired it is the Marzetti Company. And they acquired Bachans for$400 million. Do not touch your pinky, Mike. $400 million. Who does that? Very exciting stuff. Marzetti's is what some might describe as a global leader in sauces. You might have seen their dressings and dips in stores. They also work with a bunch of food service operators. They have licensing agreements with well-known restaurant chains, including Olive Garden, Chick-fil-A, Buffalo Wild Wings, et cetera, et cetera. So very cool to see them getting into this space with just an outstanding brand.

5:13And congratulations to founder and CEO Justin Gill, who's one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet in this business and who's built an incredible brand. So according to the press release, Bacchan's net sales for the 12 months ending on December 31st, 2025 were approximately$87 million. I mean, that's a lot of sauce. That is a lot of sauce. Yeah. They've just taken off. I mean, they have such a quality product, really fun branding. I mean, how long have they been around to then, you know, turn around and sell for this much? Yeah, that's a good point. I think I want to say this is their sixth or seventh year in business.

5:50I sat down with Justin for an episode of Taste Radio. Yeah, they launched in 2019. I'm pretty sure I sat down with him in 2021 or 2022. And even then, they were just a rocket ship. Yeah. So really cool stuff. And the story, the background is such a great story. So Bachan means grandma in Japan. And so he based this company off of his grandmother's recipes, his family's recipes just in general. But this is an ode. This brand is an ode to his grandmother, which is really cool. I think that Bachans will be able to lend some real cultural credibility to Marzetti. They've certainly built that up for themselves.

6:29And I think it's something that'll translate really well. And in the reverse, Marzetti's focus on food service, I think will be a really nice opportunity for Marzetti. Bachan's had a partnership with Chopped. They also had another one. So they've dabbled in food service for a bit, but it seems like there's plenty of room to grow that business. So it seems like a really great partnership on both sides. Bachan seems to fit into their portfolio from a product perspective. But for me, their brand kind of fits into maybe a new spot for them. You're looking at a lot of their dressings in the licensing category.

7:09So you've got Olive Garden, Chick-fil-A, Buffalo Wild Wings, Arby's Subway, Texas Roadhouse, just to name all of them. And then you've got these retail brands that they've built up that are, you know, New York Bakery and Sister Schubert's, which is dinner rolls and yeast breads. a lot of specialty food brands. And then this one may be pushing them into a different space compared to some of their other products. I think this is the dream for Bachans, for Justin. I mean, his goal was to get people to taste the recipes of his family that have been passed down for generations. And now what this deal does is increase distribution of Bachans pretty dramatically and in a way that I feel is really satisfying for him.

7:55Not because of the purchase price. I mean, certainly$400 million is nothing to sneeze at. But because the vision was to introduce an ethnic culinary sauce that most people probably haven't been exposed to in the past, and now will be able to have much more flavorful food and barbecue than they had been able to have in the past. I mean, if you think about all the barbecue sauces that are out there, and bachans, if you think about it, it's not a very viscous sauce. It's pretty thin, actually. So I think when people think about barbecue sauces, they think of something that's really thick and saccharine almost.

8:30And this is a completely different type of experience and use case. When I first saw Bachans at Costco, I thought, wow, I can't believe they're here. This was super early on. And I think that's such a good example of how Bachans made sure that they weren't sequestered to the international aisle. They made sure to be in mainstream grocery and scaled into more mainstream. I'm so surprised you mentioned Costco because you know they're in your favorite store. And Market Basket, of course. Yeah, Market Basket. But I think I saw them in Costco much before I saw them at Market Basket. But to your point, they did a phenomenal job of being distributed in mainstream spots and got themselves next to mainstay old school brands.

9:16And so you had a chance to, as you were looking for whatever it is you were looking for, have your eyes come across them. And that's something we haven't seen a lot of in that category. They took something that I think so many consumers had never heard of, never mind used, which is a Japanese barbecue sauce and made it mainstream. Consumers used it however they wanted to. And I think they also did a really, really great job of focusing on distribution and household penetration. Those are actually a couple of things that Ryan Williams of North Hall mentioned in a podcast that I just recorded for NonBase.

9:55Ryan Williams and North Hall have a data report on NonBase in our data hub that everyone should definitely check out. But Ryan was talking about how profitability is not just the goal that people are talking about anymore, that it really is all about capital efficiency and making sure that you're not trying to stay profitable if it means slow growth. He made the point, like, if you want to grow a brand and have it for your family and pass it down to your kids, then fine, that's fine. But most people, that's not what most people in this industry are looking for. So profitability alone is really not what the goal is.

10:37You want to make sure that you're turning that capital into scale, revenue, and improving margins, which is exactly what Bachans did. You know, I noticed, too, they were very disciplined in terms of product innovation. they stuck to sauces, which certainly means an efficient supply chain. Yeah, that's a really good point. I mean, like I think a lot of brands like Abachans with a, you know, a great following and a name that is respected and recognized might say, okay, let's go into dumplings or something like that. And we've seen other brands do just that. But you're right. They stuck to what they know and they honed in on flavor differentiation, introducing new products that way, but never really got into other categories.

11:17I was just reading the article about evergreen waffles in Nosh with Emily Grodin. She was talking about how the breakfast sandwiches that they launched were amazing and consumers love them. But because of the additional resources and labor required to make an entirely different product line, they had to put those by the wayside for the moment. But again, it just shows you how efficient you can be when you're disciplined the way that Bachans was. And that probably also lined them up perfectly to be acquired by Marzetti. If they were going into other categories, they probably wouldn't have, you know, maybe known what to do with those other categories.

11:51Good points. Good point indeed. Ahead of major trade shows, food and beverage professionals across the industry are turning to BevNet and Nosh to stay informed. If you have a brand update, share it with us at submit.bevnet.com forward slash news. I'm going to have a hard time talking about this one because it's a challenging story to talk about. As we saw on NOSH recently, our very own Brad Avery and Monica Wadras covered the story about Peter Atia, the well-known physician and wellness influencer who was mentioned in hundreds of emails with Jeffrey Epstein. And those emails were released recently by the U.S.

12:38Department of Justice. Peter is the chief science officer and an investor at David Protein. He's also invested in an advised AG1, Magic Spoon, and LMNT, among others. I mean, this is a PR nightmare for those companies, certainly for Peter Atio, but all the companies he's involved with, as noted in the article, you know, he isn't just a celebrity endorser for these brands. He is their, quote, trust architect. I don't know what you do with this story if you're one of these brands. Fire your trust architect. Yeah, that's one thing you can do. I have certainly heard him on his podcast talk about AG1 and Element.

13:18So certainly he touts the brands that he invests in and that he advises. But on the other hand, I'm sort of wondering, how many people really buy Element because Peter Atiyah is associated with it, or AG1 because Peter is? I'm just wondering what the actual damage is. Well, the bigger problem is going to be how many people will not buy Element because he's associated with the brand or when they find out that he's associated with the brand. But the question really is, in a sea of people who are associated with the Epstein files now, is he going to be the one that's focused on by consumers? Chances are lower given the high profile of the people who have been mentioned and the things that a lot of folks are trying to uncover still.

14:06I think it kind of opens the door, though, for consumers to ask, are these brands asking the right questions? Are they looking for the right advisors? What's their decision making like? Because they have their trust architect as this person. So are they making other maybe sketchy decisions as well? You're spot on, but there's also a question that you're not asking. And the question that the consumers are going to ask is, did they know? Did the brand on some level know? It's a hard answer, right? I mean, how do you know, how well do you know your partners or your investors, especially from a personal standpoint?

14:45I've talked to a lot of founders who talk all about culture and aligning with the right people. And a lot of that, I think, is done on the business level, sort of a surface business level. I mean, you don't live with these folks. I mean, you don't spend a ton of time. Even for founders who do spend a significant amount of time with their investors or advisors, it's hard really to know people as well as you might want to know them. And how much he was mentioned in the Epstein files is detailed in the Nosh article. So you can read that at nosh.com. I mean, some of the stuff you might not want to read, honestly, it's pretty cruel and disgusting stuff.

15:22I mean, I'm not even going to dignify some of the stuff that he said in these emails. It's pretty bad. In terms of the brand equity that was lost and the overall damage to the brands, it also makes me think about Subway and Jared, of course. I know certainly that Subway suffered when the scandal was unfolding, but I'm unclear on what the lasting damage to Subway was. Moving on to someone who I guess probably has less controversy surrounding his life, even though he's, what, 93 now? William Shatner? Yeah, I would say so. You know, was William Shatner ever, has he ever been embroiled in controversy?

15:59I can't think of anything bad about him, but there might be. Yeah. I mean, he infamously got in fights with Leonard Nimoy when they were on Star Trek because Shatner always wanted more lines to say on the episodes. He was always like, why did Nimoy have more lines than I do? because he was the head honcho. Okay, for folks who have no idea who William Shatner is, he was the original Captain Kirk on Star Trek. So when they had the Star Trek TV show in the 60s, I didn't actually watch it because I was in the 1160s. Yay, 1990s. So you're more of a TNG guy? I'm Star Trek The Next Generation. Right, me too, yeah.

16:34There you go. He has a couple of controversies. Okay, but anywho, he's been out there and doing movies and TV and he's just known for his kind of just general antics as an aging man. And I would describe this new campaign - Those are what his controversies are around. His worldview is very, very old. Okay. Yeah. Well, I would describe the brand that he's aligning with for this new campaign as relatively old as well. So Kellogg's Raisin Brand - Yes, perfect. Has partnered up with William Shatner - Is he going to be the Kellogg's Raisin Man? To tackle America's fiber gap. With a new campaign called Will Shat?

17:18Oh, my God. It's kind of good. You have to admit, it's pretty good. Okay. So according to Kellogg's press release here, if you're already planning your game day spread, Kellogg's Raisin Bran has a message for your, quote, future self. Today, the brand revealed its first big game spot starring legendary actor William Shatner. mission tackling the 95 % fiber gap identified by the 2020-2025 dietary guidelines for Americans. Because let's be honest, we've all experienced that, quote, gut regret the morning after indulgence. So basically they're saying you need to relieve yourself after eating all those chicken wings and hamburgers and nachos.

18:02And the best way to do so is to make sure you have a full belly of William Shatner's Raisin Bran. I have a better spokesperson sitting across the table from me, but. Okay. I don't think. Melissa. Melissa Shatt is necessarily the campaign slogan you want. That's less of a play on my name, I suppose. Less of a play on your name. I don't think that's necessarily. Melissa Traversed, too. Yeah, okay. You know, I think the partnership is hilarious, but I do have an issue with Kellogg's Raisin Bran because I looked up the nutritionals. It's only seven grams of fiber in one serving. I had to look this up because I was like, Raisin Bran, is that really even that full of fiber?

18:52No, actually it isn't. For 190 calories and 18 grams of sugar, it's seven grams of fiber. Now, what I would want to do is partner with SmartBrand, which is my sort of fiber cereal obsession. 17 grams of fiber in the SmartBrand and eight grams of added sugar. To me, that's a much better allegory to, you know, using the word chat. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's funny about this. You know, this campaign is clearly geared toward people who are older, who know William Shatner, who know the Raisin Bran name, and just need to be reminded of both. Because clearly you're not going to get, I mean, I would be shocked if there were some, you know, 22-year-old who was just like, oh, I'm going to go out and get some Raisin Bran now.

19:37I mean, like, this just doesn't make a lot of sense. But so I think this is just about reminding people that Raisin Bran still exists. And, you know, maybe that's it. They, according to the company, a decent way to get some fiber. But according to Melissa, it's... It's just okay. It's mid at best. You'd be better off drinking some Listerine is what you're saying. That's right. What does that mean, Ray? Don't do that. PSA, don't drink Listerine, okay? I don't know where that means. I wonder how much fiber is in these new organic breakfast bars that I have from Dave's Killer Bread. Love Dave's Killer Bread.

20:14Love it. A brand that started out as a better-for-you organic bread company. They've since expanded into a ton of different categories, particularly within snacks. So these new organic breakfast bars are reminiscent of a Nutri-Grain bar, except they're way better. These taste amazing. They're not as flimsy as Nutri-Grain bars. So there's a little bit more of a, I wouldn't say they're crispy, but there's a little bit more of a give or less of a give to these things. They're organic. They come in three varieties. This is their strawberry crumble variety, which is great. They have three grams of protein, only four grams of fiber, Melissa, sorry, but 15 grams of whole grains.

20:51they contain 10 grams of sugar per bar i've had these these are fantastic absolutely one of my favorite dave's killer bread products and they've come out again with a ton of different snacks anything from pretzels to bars to so on so forth i think it's bites yeah but i think they hit it out of the park with these and they're such a good example of a company that incorporates inclusive hiring at least they used to dave himself was formerly incarcerated and they make a point to hire people who are formerly incarcerated. So you can feel even better about eating the bars. There you go. Another bar that I have in my hand is from the fantastic folks at Midday Squares.

21:30They're known for their peanut butter squares that are just magnificent. Peanut butter and chocolate squares, that is, that are just magnificent. They're refrigerated snacks. They've been around for a while. If you go into a Whole Foods, a Target, you'll see their bars and you'll be in love. So they recently introduced this new no bread PB &J, which is basically a PB &J bar that doesn't contain any bread. It comes in this little packet. It's 1.23 ounces. It's just like a tiny little pouch. It almost looks like a large peppermint patty package. That is one of the best peanut butter snacks I've had in a very long time.

22:10It's delicious. Yeah, it's really good. The ingredients are good. strawberry variety. This has six grams of protein, four grams of fiber. Again, you have to keep it refrigerated. It's 130 calories per bar. The way they are able to imbue that product with sweetness, with that layer of strawberry on the top without adding a ton of extra sugar, I thought was really amazing. Yeah. Only eight grams of sugar per bar, including six grams of added sugar. So they use things like sugar, fruit pectin, Jerusalem artichoke fiber. I guess that's where the fiber comes from fruit juice concentrate, maple syrup.

22:45So I think that's where you're getting a lot of the sweetness. But this is like a super foodio level peanut butter snack for me. Like I really love this. Yeah. I need to try it. And there's no chocolate in it, right? Right. No chocolate. Okay. No. All right, Jackie, I see some cans. I got cans. I got tomatee over here. I have their yerba mate, which this one's ginger. And then this is rosé. And these are really delicious and also very, very simple ingredients. Like this one, the ginger is literally just spring water, yerba mate, ginger juice, and lemon juice, and has 120 milligrams of caffeine in it, which is more than a cup of coffee.

23:25It's really, really good. Chugging it. You got to chug it? Yep. Okay. Wow. I need the caffeine. No, that's really, really, really good. It's very, very light. This for me would be like an energy drink, but it doesn't taste like one. Oh yeah. It's going to be an energy drink. Yeah. See what happens when you drink that whole thing. If it hits you the same way a cup of coffee does, because I always find yerba mate gives me more energy. Oh, it does for sure. Yeah. It's like super energy. Yeah. I recall your interview with the founder of Tomatee, Rocco Quaranto. Also, he's the co-founder at BevNet Live a couple of years ago during the Taste Radio studio.

24:04Great guy. Great guy. Yeah. Love what he's doing over there. And I feel like what he's doing is actually differentiated from some of the other Yerba Mate brands, some of the other energy drink brands. It feels like its own thing, which can sometimes be hard for brands to really carve out your own space. But Tama T feels like we're doing our own thing over here. Yeah. He's really smart, really focused. Good stuff. Yeah, absolutely. I have right here this beverage called Tarte. It's labeled as an organic, healthy lifestyle beverage. And they actually use Tarte cherry in the ingredients. The ingredients here, I was super impressed with them.

24:42There's carbonated mineral water, organic Tarte cherry, organic cranberry, lime and lemon. And it tastes really good. And of course, you get the anti-inflammatory properties from the cherry. The mineral water is a source of natural electrolytes. I do think on the front of the can, they could have promoted the benefits a little bit more. I mean, certainly I know you have to be careful of the claims, but I think positioning this a little bit more as a lifestyle beverage on the front of the can, I think could be an interesting move for them, but really tasty stuff. And by the way, we met Tart, we were introduced to Tart and met its founder at the Winter Fancy Food Show and big fan of that brand.

25:24Lindsay Frederick, who is the founder, I hope she joins us for a future episode of Elevator Talk, which is our series that profiles early stage and disruptive brands from across the food and beverage industry. But I agree with you on the front of pack there. I think that's V1. I think it's packaging V1 for this brand. And I'm excited to see where it goes from here. Yeah, the flavor itself is really tasty. And I love the fact that they're not using any kind of either sweetener or non-nutritive sweetener. It's just the juices and the flavoring is really good. And then the other product I found in on the shelf was this Mike's Hot Honey Syrup.

25:58So it's syrup infused with chilies. And this is something that they recommend you put in cocktails, coffee, tea, lemonade, smoothies, and milkshakes. I was trying to imagine a Mike's Hot Honey milkshake and I gagged a little bit, to be honest. I mean, I can imagine maybe like a spicy margarita with Mike's Hot Honey. But really the only place where I feel like this would make sense is something like a chain restaurant. I was at a John Harvard's and the waiter was telling us, it wasn't the highlight of my dining experiences that month, but the waiter was telling us about this martini that they had that where the rim of the glass was rolled in CineDust from Cinnamon in Toast Crunch.