David Got Sued. Is This What Success Looks Like?

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0:51Hello 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, John Craven, Melissa Travers, and Mike Schneider. In this episode, we discuss three top-of-mind topics, including scrutiny around David Protein, a roundup of Senna 2026, SEC Food Expo North America, and a pithy social media campaign launched by Stiller Soda. Taste Radio's meetup in New York City is less than a month away. It's on April 16th. That's a Thursday in New York City in Times Square at the offices of Anchin.

1:35Very excited for the NYC meetup. I'm always excited to be in New York. It's the, what do they call it? The center of the universe? Or is that Boston? Boston's the hub of the universe. Yeah, we're the hub. And they're the big apple, Ray. They are the big apple. We're not the big anything here in Boston. Maybe the big bean, perhaps. The baked bean. You can register for the NYC meetup at taste radio.com slash meetups. You can also register for our other events upcoming this year, including the ones in San Diego, San Francisco, and London. Our meetup in Austin is TBD in terms of location, but stay tuned for details because we'll have them very soon.

2:13Register anyway. Register anyway. You just sent us a note. There is no register. Not yet. Yeah. And of course, BevNet Live is on the horizon. That's in June. June specifically what? This is a quiz for everyone. June, John Craven, what days in June? 10th and 11th. The 10th and 11th of June. And of course, BevNet Live is the premier event of the beverage industry, at least for the first half of the year. The second half of the year, the one in L.A. is the premier beverage industry event. And we're now accepting applications for BevNet Live's new beverage showdown. to your chance to participate in and maybe win the industry's signature beverage brand competition.

2:55You can apply to join us on stage at BevNet.com. Great. We talked to a lot of brands at Expo West who are applying. It's going to be a great new beverage showdown again, but don't let that stop you from applying. Get out there, apply today, and get into the selection process. It's only going to be a great new beverage showdown if you apply. That's true. That's very true. We need you to apply. And remember, when you do apply, we ask for a video. Let's just very quickly talk about how to optimize your video such that we are very excited about your brand. I mean, I don't think you should overthink your video.

3:32I think you should just get in there and show us what you're made of a little bit. Give us your pitch. Tell us why you want to be in the competition. Get in, get out. That's enough for us. We just want to see a little bit of stage presence. Yeah, I mean, for me, I look for people that I think are going to be fun and exciting and vibrant on stage because, I mean, that's a big part of the competition is the fun aspect of, wow, we're hearing from these new folks that are coming into the industry and are bringing a dose of excitement, bringing some, again, vibrancy and newness, for lack of a better word, to our amazing beverage industry.

4:10And, you know, just by applying, you're getting yourself out there in in front of our eyes. So there's a good reason right there. We watch all the videos. We're just looking for a little bit of personality. You don't have to worry about being a professionally trained speaker or anything like that. Just show us that you love what you're doing and that you have purpose and that should be enough. I would say so. Melissa, how many times have you pitched on stage? I mean, I feel like, you know, we always ask folks to present their business plans and products to folks on stage. And I feel like we, when we get up on stage, we do a little bit of that.

4:45So we're kind of selling ourselves as well, right? Yeah, absolutely. And when you're on stage, I mean, do you feel comfortable doing that? I mean, is there something that is there, is there a sort of thing that you do to make yourself comfortable? No matter what it is, I always get super nervous. I mean, you know me, like I over prepare for everything, but as soon as I get up there, everything falls away and I'm totally fine. And I hear that from so many people as well, that they're nervous about getting up there, which I actually think is not such a bad sign. I heard somewhere that the nervous energy that you get before having to perform actually improves your performance.

5:19So it's good if you're nervous before you get up there. I'd say just turn off that voice of doubt in your head. You can easily kick that out as soon as like a microphone is in front of you or a camera comes on. And just know like particularly at BevNet, it's a safe space. We're trying to help you. And so is all of our community. Are you nervous or are you excited? Both. I think it's both. Right. Yeah. I mean, if you're naturally introverted, and I feel like I'm a naturally introverted person. It doesn't seem like it, but I am. It's kind of tough to get up there on stage. But then once you're in that flow state, it's a lot easier.

5:57It feels a lot easier anyway. You can always just find that person in the audience who's like vibing with you, you know, and just focus on that person. And nobody else in the audience knows you're not looking at them. They just start looking at your presentation. They're listening to what you have to say. It all turns out better than you think it will. And then also we've had, you know, folks up there that they pause, they catch themselves. The audience just gives them all kinds of positive energy to keep going because we just want to hear what you have to say. And whatever you have to say, I guarantee it's good enough.

6:28Yeah. It's like anything else. Practice makes perfect. You're going to be pitching to investors and retailers and other decision makers. So the more practice you get, the more comfortable you'll be. Oh, just put more pressure on them now, Melissa. Jeez. Just keep doing it. It's true. It's true. Cold brew is booming, and functional RTDs are leading the charge. Download From Formulation to Final Sip, a free guide from Vibrant Ingredients and BevNet, where you'll learn how to build scalable, flavor-forward cold brew beverages with protein, L-theanine, and clean caffeine. Grab your copy now at Tastereadio.com slash cold brew.

7:07Energy continues to anchor the functional beverage category, but the ingredients powering it are evolving. Stay tuned till the end of this episode for a bonus interview with Biobotanica's Scott Florentino, who explains how the company's high-quality, carefully extracted botanicals, including Yerba Mate, are delivering the kind of efficacious energy consumers want, while cognitive ingredients like Lion's Mane continue to gain traction. I mentioned introverted and sort of anxiety on stage because I remember when Peter Rahal, who is the founder or co-founder of RxBar and now the founder of David Protein, when I saw him at Nosh a few years ago on stage, it felt like he had a little bit of shyness going on.

7:55It felt like he was not naturally comfortable with being on stage and being the center of attention, the focus of whatever presentation was going on. And I think part of it was that he was still getting accustomed to the fact that he was running this multimillion dollar company that everyone was talking about and a potential, you know, humongous exit. Actually, I think at the time they had exited, it was a few months after they had exited. And so I think about, you know, what he's accomplished since. And I've spoken to him since I talked to him a couple of years ago about the development of David Protein.

8:30I feel like he's a little bit more comfortable in his shoes. And I feel like he is sort of setting the stage at this point for the next, I guess, evolution of protein in portable form. You know, when David came out, it definitely felt like something different. And we've seen a lot of copycats since. And now that we've seen a lot of this attention on the brand, we're starting to see a lot of scrutiny around the brand. And I think, Melissa, this is something you want to talk about today. I have been rabidly following the David controversy. It seems like there's a new story every month or so. So of course, there is a class action lawsuit filed in January against David Barr.

9:16And the claim was that the bars have 400 % more fat and 80 % more calories than what you see on the nutritional panel. the response by David Barr is that the mechanism by which these calories are being calculated is a, I think it's a bomb calorimeter, something like that. I confuse it with a bomb cyclone. That's a weather phenomenon. I don't know why you would use bomb as a measurement for anything really. I don't either. So apparently that tracks the total number of calories. But the response from David Barr was that the ingredient that they have in the bars, which is EPG, and that was actually the company that David Barr bought, Epigee, which is the maker of EPG, which is a fat substitute.

10:06Your body digests, I think, a portion of it, but 92 % of it doesn't get digested. So the calories are being calculated, but it's not calculating what your body is using. And it's just kind of like a big, I don't know, it's a big story. It feels like a big mess to me. Sounds like a big scientific mess. Yeah. But I'm curious to, you know, hear what you guys think. Does this affect consumer perception of the product? Does it affect their trust? I mean, I think people are moving away from ultra processed foods. It reminds me of that scene in Mean Girls, where the antagonist, I forget her name, the blonde girl in the movie, thinks she's eating low calorie protein bars.

10:47She's actually eating very high calorie protein bars. She's like, why am I still gaining weight? And it turns out that Lindsay Lohan's character is actually giving her very high calorie, high fat protein bars. I've seen that come up in the articles. Oh, really? Well, I guess to answer your question, I don't think it will really matter. And these lawsuits, I can't help but just kind of roll my eyes or sigh. You know, it's like, what is it today? I mean, we've seen class action lawsuits over, there aren't as many electrolytes as this claim. There aren't as many probiotics, blah, blah, blah. I mean, I think a lot of these just have no interest of protecting, you know, the consumer and what you just described, which is sort of like a nice ambiguous, you know, each party will have its own opinion, just sounds like, you know, that'll probably get a settlement.

11:41So mission accomplished, I guess. My feeling is that if it tastes good, then people are going to keep buying, like Diet Coke, like it's people still drink Diet Coke. It's super ultra processed. It has a lot of ingredients that people are trying to avoid, but people like the taste of it. I don't know if you, have you guys tried the David bars? I feel like they don't taste great. So I bought a bunch of these. I have them here with me. I bought a bunch of them when they showed up at Market Basket and I tried one and And I haven't been able to eat the rest of them because I just don't really love the flavor.

12:13I mean, clearly bars are very subjective, you know, polarizing in some cases, or there wouldn't be like thousands of them. So I think what they've done with their launch were, yeah, they have some people who love it and other people that are out there, you know, ranting that they hate it. It's actually kind of a good thing for their brand. I mean, it makes it stand out. And they've done a really good job of making that brand stand out like in a relatively short amount of time. That's the no PR is bad PR philosophy. I'm not really sure that that's what they're going for with things like, you know, ending up in a class action lawsuit.

12:48But even that it's some sort of bump in the road that, you know, that whole like EPG thing, it kind of felt like it needed some education behind it. And I guess if there's a good side effect of this maybe slightly negative situation, it might force the conversation and accelerate education of an ingredient that otherwise, like, how do they promote it, you know? My thinking with these bars is that they're function first and flavor second. And so if the flavor is at least passable, you'll get somebody who wants to eat the whole thing. So I'm pretty sure that's where people are landing on these. The last time I tasted one, which was probably, I don't know, formulation one, they were fine.

13:31Whatever flavor they said they were was what it tasted like to me on some level. But I felt like, okay, there's a lot of things that they're not even trying to mask yet that are in this bar. I mean, I think that if you are looking at the Nutrition Facts panel on these bars, you see 150 calories, you see 2 grams of fat, and you see 28 grams of protein. But the thing that really stands out to me is the 7 grams of sugar alcohol. And that doesn't align with the front of the package, which says 0 grams of sugar. So it doesn't matter if you know the difference between sugar, alcohol and sugar. The fact that you have seven grams of sugar, alcohol on here, I think it's going to throw some folks off, especially ones who are going to pay a premium for David bars and say, I'm buying this because it has macros or at least it has less of what I don't want in these products.

14:28At the end of the day, I think David is going through what a lot of fast growing companies go through, which is once you hit that$10 million mark, you're automatically a target for these class action lawsuits. You know, Justin Prochnow, who is an attorney with Greenberg-Trorig, I can never pronounce that, he's really an expert on legal claims associated with nutrition facts panels and whatnot, has talked about the fact that there are these law firms that will go into a boardroom, bust out, I don't know, 20 to 30 brands that are new and emerging on the market and say, okay, let's figure out how we can sue this company and sue that company.

15:14And okay, well, can we actually get any money out of that company? Can we get any money out of that company? So once I think to your point, John, like once you reach a certain size, you are going to have a target on your back. It's not necessarily a good thing. In fact, Mike Kerbin talked about this at BevNet Live many years ago when Vitacoco got sued. I think it was for sure. Was it for a sugar cup? Electrolytes. And he was furious. And he just couldn't believe that they were getting sued for what he thought was a pretty frivolous reason. But at the end of the day, they paid whatever they needed to pay and they moved on.

15:49They have since been a booming company. Well, they were a booming company then too. Didn't really slow them down. They weren't at the$300 million a year at this point. It wasn't, I guess my point was more that they're not even necessarily waiting until you're like as giant as you're going to be. Well, I think David is probably doing, you know, tens of millions of dollars in revenue, if not more than that at this point, based on their distribution and based on the amount of, I guess, interest that I've seen in the brand. Yeah. Yeah, they're doing pretty well. Yeah. And Craven, to your point, I didn't understand EPG before all of this.

16:22Now I think I understand how it behaves in your body. I didn't really look into it before. So now I definitely understand the ingredient more. I mean, I'm not sure it'll have consumer sort of education, but, you know, it'll certainly create industry awareness. I mean, we're doing it right now, right? And I think that's sort of like, to some extent, probably the little bit of a spark that they might need for that ingredient. Not that they're like not doing okay without that, but still, you know, we'll see what happens. Well, it scares me that 92 % of the EPG is not actually digested in your body, which sounds a little bit like Olestra from back in the day.

17:00Apparently 100 % of Olestra was not digested in the body. And if you don't remember what Olestra was, it was basically an oil that... Just Google it. We don't need to get into that. But basically it was used for chips. You would fry these chips in Olestra and supposedly they would have less fat, but the Olestra turned out to be like plastic. So essentially. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm definitely interested to see how this plays out. I think we're all watching protein in general. I was just talking to Sherry Fry of Nielsen IQ on the Non-Base podcast, and she was talking about how consumers are moving away from grams of protein and macros to things like nutrient density and availability of nutrients.

17:41So if the current phase we're in right now is 30 grams of protein, the next phase is looking for complete proteins, bioavailability, and nutrient density per calorie. How can I find that podcast? You could go to nonbase.com slash podcast and listen to it this week. Can I find it on my listening platform of choice? You could also find it on your listening platform of choice, Mike. Awesome. Thank you. I coined that term, by the way, listening platform of choice. Did you? TM Relative. Yes, of course you did. But most people say your favorite listening platform. You know you're good when somebody else uses your term.

18:15This is true. I've said it probably a thousand times on this podcast. You have said it on your listening platform of choice. Yes, indeed. When it comes to protein density and clean ingredients, one has to look no further than seafood, right? Seafood is one of the ultimate sources of clean protein. You have essentially a single ingredient. I mean, it is a single ingredient depending on what you're eating. And I was really excited to go to the, or attend the Seafood Expo North America show, which was held at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center yesterday. It started on Sunday. It ended on Tuesday.

18:51A global event, mix of exhibitors, buyers, restaurateurs, of course, fishmongers and processors. It's an event that leans heavily toward food service, but there's definitely a number of retail brands that are exhibited at the show. And it gives you a sense of sort of where that category, that retail seafood brand category is going. It felt a tiny a bit quieter in terms of consumer brands than it did in years past, but definitely saw familiar themes of innovation, convenience, absolutely, protein-forward nutrition, really distinctive flavors and sustainability. Frozen meals were the primary form or format for innovation that I saw to show.

19:37There was a brand called Aquamar, A-Q-U-A space M-A-R. They're best known for their cerimi. You know what cerimi is? I know I've had it, but I guess I don't know what it is. It's better known as imitation crab. So anytime that I get in my belly, no, but you had a California roll back in the day and they're like, Oh, is this crab? Like, no, it's imitation crab. You're like, Oh, it's usually a new name for it. Cerimi sounds a lot better. Oh, this is California. This is a California roll with cerimi. Oh, wonderful. That sounds better than what I called it, which was K-rab. Oh, gosh. So Aquamar has steadily introduced new prepared foods, and they're releasing a lot of them at the end of this year, more specifically in Q3.

20:23The stuff that was really most eye-catching for me was their appetizers. They had fried scallop bites and lobster and shrimp risotto cakes, and they were all finished with these little crispy rice balls. And I was like, this is exactly, I think, what consumers want for their frozen appetizers. If you're looking for something new in that space or in that aisle, you want new flavors, you want familiar flavors, but you also want something new in terms of the texture. You want something that's a little different. And so you bite at these things and it's got this great crunchy exterior and then this delicious flavor inside, which I thought was fantastic.

21:00And from a retailer perspective, the price of seafood certainly isn't coming down. It's a fairly expensive product. So the more value add you can provide and the less seafood and the more rice crunch you can include certainly helps everybody. That's a really, really good point, actually. And, you know, a lot of the discussion that I had with exhibitors yesterday was about trying to make seafood as easy as possible for the consumer. Do you want more repeat buyers on Amazon? Well, this free resource in collaboration with Straight Up Growth will help your brand turn first-time buyers into long-term subscribers.

21:39Download Winning the Repeat Purchase Game on Amazon now at Tasteradio.com slash SUG. That's Tasteradio.com slash S-U-G to start building retention-driven growth for your brand on Amazon. If you're developing a cannabis beverage, formulation choices matter. especially early on. Source Technology's free guide shares practical insights on stability, dosing, and scale-ready development. Download the ins and outs of creating a cannabis beverage today at tasteradio.com slash cannabis. Well, John slacked something yesterday that I thought was relatively interesting, and it was a new, I don't know, I can't call it a campaign because it was just Ben Stiller in a supermarket.

22:25I mean, it's what, no, it wasn't. Yeah, I guess you're right. I'd call it a social media campaign. Sure, sure. I don't know. You think in old 30-second spots on, I don't know, what TV channel would you watch? I don't even know. Channel 56. There you go. WLVI. There you go. Yeah, it was a social media video just of Ben Stiller in a Whole Foods sampling Stiller soda, kind of pretending not to be Ben Stiller, and people realize he's Ben Stiller. It's kind of funny. I don't know. Got some hate on social media I saw. mostly of like, why is this guy launching a soda? But I don't know, at least it's not a tequila.

23:05I mean, for me, I guess it's kind of funny. I'm sure they only selected certain clips from whatever they shot because - Oh, for sure. There were probably just as many people asking for selfies and coming in there and being like, obviously this guy's Ben Stiller. But yeah, I imagine that more people realized it was a prank or a joke than they did really questioning the fact that that was Ben Stiller. Anyway, we're talking about him now, which is the whole point. Yeah. Well, I think it gets like the hate that I saw over it or shade, if you will. It's more that, I don't know, Ben Stiller as a brand is kind of like innocuous, right?

23:41There's no like controversy there. Yeah. So the fact that he put his brand and his literal name on a soda, it just seems, you know, kind of on brand for him, right? Sure. And I think he was kind of being compared to like other celebrity brands that maybe really had a question of like, why is this person launching a, I don't know, whatever. And again, I mean, he just launched something pretty ubiquitous. And I think that was a pretty well executed little video that they did. So and nice to see that he's actually out there like doing something for this product that has his name on it. No doubt. It was a very expensive video that they shot.

24:22Well, I think that's the thing. At the end of the day, people are like, okay, obviously this guy can afford to launch a beverage company and he's arrogant enough to put his name on it, which I'm not saying that, but I'm sure people are trying to say these things and can afford to do a slick social media campaign like this. So that's probably where some of the hate came from. I welcome someone with that brand equity entering into the CPG space. And I think others in CPG will benefit from it. Seems to be a bunch of love for the Shirley Temple too. People seem to like it. Yeah. Yeah. I love Monfifo.

24:54Me too. Yeah. Me too. Melissa, you busted out these shots. I love these shots. Yeah. I just, I saw these in our beverage fridge today. Craven, I saw you drinking one. I drank like 12 of these last week. And so Monfifo is. Can't stop, won't stop. Monfifo is a shot brand. They are based out of Brooklyn, New York. I believe they're in the New York and New Jersey Whole Foods markets. They are, are they all organic? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So this brand of juice shots was, and juice and wellness shots was founded by Justine Monsel, who has since exited the company. But I'm forgetting who. The Lumen guys.

25:30The Lumen guys took it over and they come in these two ounce glass bottles and three varieties that we have. Most is opening up the. I have the Peruvian ginger with chlorophyll and oregano oil. Wasn't oregano oil in one of the Erewhon smoothies that. It's in the germ warfare shop. Germ warfare, that's right. Also known as the poison shot, also known as Amanda Smirlenski's favorite shot. Yes. Sorry, Amanda. Well, I mean, I love Monfifa. I've loved this brand since they launched, and I think they launched 2016, I want to say. A while ago, yeah. Yeah, Monfifa won our new beverage showdown, bringing it back to the showdown.

26:06Apply for the showdown today. It was the same year that Vive, Vive Organic, participated in the showdown. So great to see that both brands are still around and live and kicking. But I mean, speaking of kicking, these shots really bring it. Yeah, I just tried the chlorophyll and oregano oil shot. And I have to say, it tastes really good for, especially oregano oil has an incredibly strong flavor, but they do a great job. It's tasty. That's probably because it has like the tiniest, tiniest little... Right, right. Maybe you only need a little bit. Yeah, you do. I mean, that stuff, it permeates. It's like saffron, you know, just...