'Death' vs. Poppi. How Plink's Patience Is Paying Off.

0:10Hello and thanks for tuning into Taste Radio, the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food or beverage. I'm Ray Lateef, the editor and producer of Taste Radio, and I'm here with my co-hosts, John Craven, Jackie Brugliera, and Mike Schneider. In this episode, we're joined by Luke Montgomery-Smith, the co-founder of Plink, a brand of effervescent electrolyte tablets that are designed to enhance hydration for its consumers. Plink! Love saying that name. Great to see Luke and the team at the San Diego meetup hosted by Naturally San Diego a couple weeks ago, maybe three weeks ago now.

0:48I have no concept of time right now. I'm just between coasts. I'm in the southeast right now. I was in the northeast this morning. I was in the southwest a couple days ago, a week ago. I don't know. Time is just, it's very abstract at this point for me. I mean, you made the most of your northeast experience this morning, though, just housing the Chase Sapphire Lounge, Ray. I did take advantage of some of the food offerings. They had a nice huevos rancheros and I had some bao sandwiches. Ray got the sample pack. He basically got one of everything. It was pretty impressive. Sounded like they had a variety too.

1:24They did. They did. It was very good. And today is the 10th of February. But when most people are listening to this, it is, of course, Valentine's Day. Happy Valentine's Day to all. I say that but then every time I talk about valentine's day in private I'm like curse this day it's a made-up holiday invented by hallmark there's no point to this I don't know Jackie do you celebrate valentine's day uh yeah I'm forced to I'm kind of like you Ray I think it's a hallmark holiday but my partner really likes it so I do it for her okay well that's nice yeah Mike seems like Valentine's Day is just not top of the list for his agenda.

2:04I mean, my wife and I are pretty... You seem like a romantic guy. I mean, you know. Thanks, Ray. I'll take that from you. Oh, boy. Anywho. We'll just move on from that. We shall move on from that. Sounds like we're all not very romantic. Yeah. Well, I mentioned today's the 10th. Yesterday was the 9th. And the Super Bowl, I believe Super Bowl 59, L-I-X, that's 59, yes, was held yesterday. And congratulations to the Eagles and all the Philly fans out there. I hope you stayed safe. I saw lots of traffic lights being pulled down and some cars being flipped over and whatnot. It's funny that it was L-I-X, right?

2:50Because I just kept saying, this Super Bowl licks. The Super Bowl licks. Such a bad game. Oh, my God. Nice, nice. So bad. Did you watch the Super Bowl? What's the Super Bowl, Ray? Yeah. There's your answer. That was nice. Yeah, it was boring. Boring. How about that? Boring. Okay, well, nobody really watches it for the game anyway, right? You watch over the commercials, so. Mm-hmm. I mean, I guess, although when it's like, what was it, 34 or nothing at halftime? Is that right? Yeah. You know, kind of takes the wind out of the desire to watch commercials, even. Fair enough. I don't know. the eagles were putting on a show though and if you don't want the chiefs to win then

3:33yeah well the eagles did indeed prevail but in terms of who won the commercials who won the big game commercials so to speak i feel like liquid death really did a great job i don't know i feel like liquid death and nike had the best ads yes i just chucked a liquid death to our pilot this morning, Ray. Did you? On our flight. Oh yeah. Drink on the job, buddy. Nice. Well, that was the thing. That was their whole thing. It was amazing. I mean, the commercial was about people drinking liquid death in random work scenarios. And it was everyone from a police officer to a bus driver. And I was with some folks when watching the game and somehow they weren't aware of liquid death.

4:17I felt like a lot of people know what it is at this point, apparently there's quite a few that don't. And they were like, whoa, whoa, what's going on here? This is a beer ad? Like, you're not supposed to be drinking beer? Like, what are they trying to say here? They were freaking out. Hilarious. And I'm like, no, it's water. And at the end of the ad, they're like, it's fine, it's water. And they had their colas as well, or their sodas as well. And I'm like, wow, that's an effective ad. I mean, you really shocked people thinking that you're encouraging people to drink alcohol. in these professional scenarios.

4:51They've done a great job of just like, you know, focusing on the instances where you shouldn't be drinking alcohol. Like I believe last year it was a bunch of kids like having a rager with like a bunch of water. So they're just like really focusing on that. And this one was, yeah, hilarious. I mean, if any brand is good at pushing buttons, it's Liquid Death for effect. I mean, just go listen to their death metal albums on Spotify, whole albums that they put out every year. And also, don't forget, they once made vegan human meat, too. So, I mean, these guys are good at what they do. Yes. Don't be scared.

5:28It's just water. I hope people saw that at the end. I hope they passed out before that. There might have been a few people, like Colin Fox, who rose on Fox, and dialing up their customer service. Do they still have customer service? I hope they were already reporting to their congresspeople, you know? Do you remember back in the day you would watch like a movie and someone would say something kind of incendiary and it was like an old movie and all of a sudden they would cut to like the operator lines at the office of said network. It should be going on. Have you seen it? Oh my God. What year is this?

6:04Yes. I think this was like the Howard Stern movie. What were the private parts? Private parts was like that. He started to say some weird stuff and all of a sudden the lines started blowing up. But I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happened with Liquid Death. Those were the days when you could just blow up the lines. Some old people calling. Poppy, on the other hand, Poppy went back-to-back years now with the Sioux Roll. Eight million bucks is what I understand the spend was for a 30-second ad. And for me, it was less memorable than the one last year. And maybe it's just because the ad wasn't for me.

6:37You know, it was meant for, you know, their target audience, Gen Z consumers who are looking for a better for you option and can relate to some of the folks that they had in their ad. I believe Alix Earl, who is a well-known influencer, was featured in the ad. Yeah, it gave me big influencer vibes. Like there was a feature of a guy from Love Island. And I mean, I think their demographic is probably watching Love Island. but a lot of like just random celebrities or very niche celebrities and influencers on there and like a younger demographic. Yeah, I would say so. And the other, the other part of this that I, that I didn't notice any ads for were the big soda companies.

7:21Were there ads for Coke and Pepsi and Dr. Pepper? I didn't, I don't recall seeing any. There was a Lays ad. Does that count? No. Doritos? Does that count? It's part of PepsiCo, you know? Okay, fair enough. But Yeah, and Doritos, that's right. Well, yeah. But usually, I mean, Pepsi used to have a very big presence at Super Bowl. It was like the Pepsi halftime show. Yeah. Or the old polar bear ads, you know? Yes. So, instead we got, you know, Willem Dafoe, like, you know, acting like he's tweaking to find Mick Ultra. Mick Ultra. Yeah. And play pickleball, too. That was amazing. Yeah, lots of beer.

8:02Did you catch Randy Moss in that ad? He's like, we're athletes. did not see that don't recall that one oh that one was amazing red bull had one with penguins but their red bull was frozen and so they couldn't drink the red bull not quite sure about that one plastic kind of red bull ad i don't know that seemed like no offense but you couldn't do something a little better right i like the jeep ad the best i like harrison ford oh yeah he's He's like, my last name is Ford. He's like, I really like this Jeep, even though my last name is Ford. That's amazing. Well, once again, I'm wondering why Harrison Ford is doing these things.

8:41If you recall from last week, it turns out that Harrison Ford is the new face of Glenn Marenghi and he's a Scotch. I'm like, right. Guy's worth$300 million. And a Jeep. And now for Jeep. Because he can, right? He's hot. He's got some time. You know, he wants to make a few more bucks. He's popular. He's doing his thing. he's got some time left on earth is that what you're trying to say come on that guy's got years to go he is we found out last week that mike likes harrison ford harrison ford is great yes but one thing that came out of the fact that there were no coke or pepsi ads was again when i was watching the super bowl yesterday someone said are you guys at bet are you guys going to talk about like how diet coke is like back and like on a tear i they're like everyone I know is drinking Diet Coke.

9:28And it's not just, you know, the people that you would expect to be drinking Diet Coke, like folks in their 40s and 50s and even older than that. It's younger consumers are drinking Diet Coke. I'm like, I don't think so. Haven't heard anything about that. I think I would know if that were happening, but maybe I'm wrong. Are you guys people drinking more Diet Coke? Is there something going on that I'm not aware of? I mean, Coke Zero maybe, but I can't really say I noticed people drinking more Diet Coke. No. And maybe there are things that are happening. I guess what was brought up was that Dua Lipa was in some sort of Diet Coke ad or like she did some Instagram ad or placement.

10:12I don't know exactly what it was, but maybe that's their strategy nowadays is doing less of the broad, big commercial kind of marketing and doing a lot more targeted stuff that just we aren't seeing as much. I don't know. But I was just I'm just trying to do some I just shared an anecdote and I was trying to get some anecdotal information out of you guys. And it sounds like that person's way, way off. You're way, way off. Yeah, yeah. I haven't seen it. Yeah, I haven't seen either. Well, I hope people get to see more of this brand pretty soon. This is New Water. N-E-A-U. You mean New Water, right?

10:49Yes, I mean New Water. New Water is a new brand, or at least an emerging brand of bottled water. They have a process which apparently strips all the bad out of water and keeps all of the good. I think that's the best way for me to describe it without getting too technical. And I say thanks to the folks at New Water because they are a big partner of ours for our Miami meetup. Again, today's the 10th, so tomorrow we'll be holding that meetup, and we'll tell you all about it in the next episode of Taste Radio. But we're expecting a great turnout. And I just visited the venue just to check it out.

11:28It looks great. And once again, appreciate the partnership of New Water, as well as Matriarch Wealth Management and Lallypack, all of whom are helping out. And yeah, expecting a really, really good time here in Miami. I should have mentioned, when I said I was in the Southeast, I should have been more specific and said I am. Yeah, right. Yeah, you're so mysterious. Mysterious man, jet setting everywhere. Yeah, we're in the Wynwood neighborhood, the Wynwood district of Miami, which is really artsy, just graffiti, like well done graffiti, if that makes any sense, on pretty much every building over here.

12:02It feels like there's a lot of gentrification that's happening at the same time. So it feels like this was a very sort of, you know, live as you are kind of community. And now, like everything in America, you know, if you're close enough to the water or you're you wanted to live in a certain part of America, it's getting expensive. And every part is becoming a little bit more cookie cutter. Miami's getting taller. It's a tall city. Yes, it is surprisingly tall. Yeah. Well, I mean, as far as new beverages go, I got to tell you, I'm away. So I don't have access to a lot of the stuff that we're seeing come into the office.

12:41But Jackie, you're in the office right now. What do you got? I have one. I got one new beverage, which is Remedy Organics' new Tropical Greens Protein, which should be at Expo West. I've already drank three-fourths of it. It's pretty tasty. But yeah, this one has kales, beryllina, mango, MCT oil, prebiotics, and it is using vegan protein, I believe, as well. So nice and tasty, a little bit sweeter. Got your greens and your protein. I got to try one of those last week. Those are pretty tasty. They also sent us their extraordinarily awesome shots, too. Got some good citrus and some turmeric. Yeah, got to build up the immunity before Expo West.

13:18So yeah, I get a lot of those. I was expecting a lot of hate. from last week's episode when I told people not to go to Expo West, which is not exactly what I said. I said, there are reasons why you may not want to go to Expo West. And these are valid reasons. I mean, we trolled you at every point. So hopefully that was helpful. Yeah. John made it very clear on LinkedIn that I was only speaking for myself and not for anyone else. Right. And then it was... Get us all banned, right? Right. It was cleared by the Bevanet attorneys at law, of which, you know, we're in constant contact. Thanks to you.

13:57The running joke on the podcast. Each time I say it, John gets even more frustrated by me. I'll stop. It's all good. Can I talk about eggs for a second? Because it just reminded me a couple of years ago when I was at Expo West, I did see a brand and a product that I absolutely adored. and that was Wonder Eggs by Crafty Counter. And these are the plant-based hard-boiled eggs. And it feels like that's kind of timely for now, right? Given the egg shortages and the amount of money that it costs to get a dozen eggs. Why not go get some more taste or try out some plant-based eggs? Yeah, I mean, why not?

14:30Yeah, I found this actually funny meme where speaking of Valentine's Day, it was like, take me somewhere expensive. And these two people are just sitting next to the egg aisle in the grocery store. I mean, some grocery stores, They literally have like limits. You can only take one carton of eggs at a time. It's getting kind of crazy over there. I don't know. I got a good hack. It's like toilet paper during the pandemic. Yeah. My personal hack is shopping at Wegmans. Shout out to Wegmans because they've got, seems like a story for fun. That's not a hack, Ray. That's a tip. Okay. Well, fine. It's a tip.

15:03Yeah. What's the hack here? Yeah. What's the hack? The hack is you go to Wegmans and you stock up on eggs and they're still going to have more tomorrow. So don't worry about that. Because when you go to all these other grocery stores, Whole Foods, which is crazy, I was at Whole Foods a week ago, and they had a sign in the egg aisle. They had no eggs available. And there's a sign in the egg aisle that says, the eggs that we're trying to source or the eggs that are available for us to source do not meet our standards. I'm like, wow. Which is kind of strange, too, because I did see VitalEggs. I did see Vital Farms eggs at other grocery stores, but not at Whole Foods, which is kind of surprising.

15:38Right. I keep seeing people misuse hack and it's like so overused. We're going to get past it, but I just need to get this off my chest. The difference between a tip, you saying go to Wegmans and buy eggs, they're going to be there tomorrow. And a hack is the hack would be, oh, you can go through the, you can go through the air duct and you can mission impossible down and grab some eggs and get out of there and get eggs for free. That's the hack. Okay. That would be a hack. It's like a cheat code. One might call me a hack host for describing my tip as a hack. How about that? You are a hack. Yes, that is another good use of hack.

16:16Okay, fair enough. I love it, Ray. Thanks. Just staying on the egg front for a second. Our dear friend and colleague Marty Caballero posted this the other day, and I saw this on the news. Waffle House is actually charging a surcharge for eggs, which is kind of crazy. I mean, come on. How long is this really going to last. It's not going to last very long. So why are you charging your customers an extra 50 cents? I mean, is Waffle House really going to be long-term affected to the point where they have to, you know, charge an extra 50 cents for eggs? Come on. That's kind of ridiculous. It's another reason to charge more, I guess.

16:47I mean, people do charge more for avocado. So it's like yet another add-on when you're figuring out your breakfast order. That is a good point. You know what? Before the proposed tariffs in this country, were about to be enacted or deployed or whatever you want to call them. And they decided to wait, the U.S. government that is. I was a little concerned that the price of avocados was going to go through the roof. And I think they went through the roof preemptively because the day before the tariffs were about to take effect, and that being, I think, was it a 25 or 50 percent tariff on goods coming from Canada and Mexico?

17:30I believe it was 25. 25. I don't know. It was changing day by day, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. The expectation was that things like avocados were going to be much pricier. And so I went to Trader Joe's and typically I get like four avocados, four organic avocados for, that's like five bucks. It was like$7.50 or whatever. Come on. I was like, come on. Come on. Crazy. Yeah. Crazy. Yeah. Well, how are we going to have our avocado toast? It's going to be like 40 bucks. I don't know. I saw you got some nice looking lunch on your table there when I dropped off your gear. I did. There's a place called Mama Next Door to us, right?

18:08We got to go there. I mean, I grabbed a squash salad because I didn't really eat anything at the Chase Sapphire Lounge this morning. What? Missed opportunity. I know. You had the bowl of Weaver Roast or Antierros. That looked like it was licked clean. What are you talking about? I did have a little bit of that. You blacked out. i didn't have a ray latif portion and i regretted it all right well just to tie this up neatly i don't mean to to give you grief mike because i did have a minor lunch myself and it was a half an italian sub that i did pack in my bag uh ray had a pocket sub jackie he had you like he took a sub out of his pocket on the plane okay well warm i'm so glad i did not travel with you This is the classic soup roll dilemma, right?

18:59You have the soup roll. You order tons of food. And, you know, you order too much. And I had, like, basically another foot and a half of the sub. Oh, my God. You brought a foot and a half of the sub. No, no, no, not a foot and a half. You just put it in his trench coat. I wrapped up most of them. I cut the whole thing up into, like, fourths. And so I had a fourth, which was a big fourth. And then he brought some for TSA. And yeah, TSA actually did look in my bag this morning, ironically. Can we get some, Ray? I'm glad I have. Ray, I'm surprised you didn't get any, Mike. Sounds like a little sub.

19:40I would have taken some pocket sub. Mike was in the back of the bus next to the toilet. True story, unfortunately. I was. We're trying to save Mike here. I sat in the restroom this time. I was in group E, guys. I didn't even know there was a group E. Wow. I know. They took my bag. Yes, that's an egregious way of flying for sure. John just threw up a little bit. Anywho. Quick break. If this episode has you thinking about what's next in food and beverage, explore BevNet and Nosh Insider, our subscription platform with deeper insights from the BevNet team. Visit tasteradio.com slash insider to learn more.

20:18All right, let's get to our featured interview for this episode. that's with Luke Montgomery Smith, the co-founder of Plink. Launched in 2022, the Vermont-based brand markets flavored, electrolyte-infused tablets. When dissolved in water, they create effervescent and hydrating beverages. A past winner of Bevanet's New Beverage Showdown, Plink is sold at GNC stores nationally, along with dozens of independent retailers, as well as online via its website and Amazon. In the following conversation, Luke talks about the evolution of Plink's messaging from one focused on sustainability to that of product attributes, why he describes magnesium as, quote, a game changer for the brand, and how the company considers merchandising as part of its retail strategy.

21:09Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now, I am supremely honored to be sitting down with Luke Montgomery Smith, who's one of the co-founders of Plink. How are you? I'm exceptionally well, Ray. I love that. Exceptionally well. Yeah. You know what? That just makes me really, really happy because there's well, which is good, and then there's exceptionally well, which is, hey, that's your... Just like really, really well. You're feeling it. I'm feeling it. I've escaped the cold of Vermont. I'm down here in San Diego. That's true. Yes. It's been shorts and t-shirt weather today. It was 73. It was like the high.

21:44It's supposed to be 80 in two days from now. I don't speak that language, but it sounds warm to me. Does your T-shirt, was that Bachman Turner Overdrive? Oh, Bad Turner. Bad Tuner Radio. Check them out. What is that? I went to a gig on Friday night. It's a lovely Brooklyn lad doing some banging tunes at Higher Ground in Burlington, Vermont. Well done. Shout out to Bad Tuner. Hopefully he's listening to this. Well, Bad Tuner Radio, Taste Radio, you know, it's all part of the same family. It's all radio. Yeah. Yeah. Plink, we met you and your wonderful co-founder, Max Luthi, who's actually standing behind you, making sure you don't say anything weird.

22:17You guys were amazing on stage at BevNet Live. Was it three years ago now? Was it 2022? Yes. 2022. Yeah. In New York, you guys won our New Beverage Showdown. We did. And Plink, I feel like, really resonated with a lot of folks. And I think you guys as founders resonated with a lot of folks. And I always think about a brand name. I always think about coming out of the gate strong. And even though you've iterated, at the core, you're still who you are as founders. And I think the brand is at its core still the same as it was two and a half years ago. Am I wrong in thinking that? No, totally. Yeah.

22:53I think in essence, when we launched, we definitely launched with a bang. Both Max and I, we love brand. So we spent a load of time pre-launch just making sure that we were joyful and bright and fun and characterful. And that really landed well at BevNet. I think we had a really big, powerful sustainability message at the offset, which was stop drinking canned and bottled beverages and drink tablets instead. And I think that was like fun and exciting for BevNet. And it won the show. It was sort of very innovative, but I think it was maybe a little bit too innovative for the consumers to begin with.

23:28I think perhaps, yeah. And, you know, it was almost we weren't asking people to move their hand to the left on the shelf. We were getting people to turn around and walk out and go to somewhere entirely different. And I think what we've done over the last couple of years is we've really honed in on being much more product positive and what's incredible about Blink. And I think what we realized at the time is we actually didn't realize this at the time of winning BevNet, but we had actually landed on the missing piece in hydration, which is no one's treating this category like their drinks, like their beverages.

24:01Everyone's talking about them like supplements, and it's about the medicinal qualities. But really, to consume a product for daily hydration, it's got to taste great. It's got to have that beginning, middle, and end that a drink has. It's got to make you feel good and be joyful. And I think, so we did reformulate. We reformulated to give ourselves the optimal blend of electrolytes for daily hydration. So not salt levels that make you feel like you're going to run a marathon and not sugar levels that make you feel like you need to run a marathon from a calorific point of view. Just a banging formula and great taste.

24:36We're not promising the world. We're just delicious electrolytes. So we don't have a sort of we're going to cure your bowel cancer with this adaptogenic mushroom. It's just a great drink that you can enjoy daily. So it's just, for us, it's just taken a little bit of time to build. But like you said, at the core, it's Blink is still who Max and I are, and the brand is really strong. And it's just been a really great few months for us, just slowly building, and people are seeing our ads coming out, and people seeing us getting in more stores. And we're about to 10x our store footprint this year, so it's a really exciting time.

25:10Yeah, I totally hear what you're saying. And I think the word refreshment has been forgotten by a lot of beverage brands, which is like the most ironic thing you could possibly hear. But it sounds like it's almost part of the way that you guys have evolved too. Totally. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think refreshment on demand was actually on the side of the pack at BevNet. And I think it's just the joy of the category is what excited us most. We're obviously not at peak performance. There's still a lot more stuff that can come. But I do think that there is a lovely backlash to just, Can we just calm down the functionality and just enjoy a delicious drink?