Did Expo West Actually Deliver? It Depends On Who You Ask.

0:10Hello, 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 here with my co-hosts, John Craven, Jackie Brugliera, and Mike Schneider. John Craven and Mike Schneider are in the usual spot of Newton, Massachusetts at BevNet HQ. Jackie's all by herself in her usual spot of San Diego. And I am in an undisclosed location, which I will reveal in a few episodes of Taste Radio soon to hit the podcast. I don't want to reveal the surprise right now. It's not jail. Yeah.

0:47Looks a lot like a motel. Listeners are thinking it's jail, but it's not jail. It looks like a safe house to me. You're in witness protection. It is a safe house. And for those of you who may have thought that I was indeed a secret agent or an intelligence agent of a unknown country, you are correct. Agent and provocateur. You give me James Bond vibes. They mistook you for having a title that has intelligence in it. Yes. Ray has like a burner apartment. He records all his interviews. Indeed, indeed. Well, I'll just say this. I'm getting some sunlight coming in through my window here. John and Mike aren't getting much sunlight in their studio, which might be the reason why they're looking a little pale, or they could just be recovering from Expo West.

1:35I mean, that show is so difficult. And when we recorded last week, I felt like even though we recorded a day after we walked, you know the show for two straight days it was still i needed two three four days to recover i don't know what it is something about expo west first of all you said after we walked the show floor mike and i did a whole other day after you left we did we were literally there until they were like on the third they went from the the show's over you should leave to like to get the hell out we got kicked out we've never been kicked out before well the show closes at two on friday So you guys did a half day, essentially.

2:12I mean, we heard Tina Turner singing, We Don't Need Another Hero. It was Thunderdome. Thunderdome. Everything was starting to come down all around us. The snowplow was out to just, you know, to plow all the booths down. Who was left? I ran into Matt Weiss from Rhein, the founder of Rhein, and I ran into Purvi Patodia, the founder of Vienna, at the airport. I figured a lot of people were gone by that point. I don't know who was manning the booths. I don't know. There were a lot of people there. Jay Carls was not there. I tried to go to the Midday Squares booth, but it was a ghost town. The looting was incredible.

2:44Mike got some extension cords. The real reason you guys stick around. Flat screen TV. I got a Zoom recorder and a red camera. I looted so much stuff. Yes. Okay. Well, we did meet a lot of interesting folks with interesting brands and products at Expo West. It was good to see a bunch of early stage folks. And yes, I've had my say on early stage brands at Expo West. But, you know, a few of them, I think, had a really good event and came away with some good feedback, some good advice, probably some really good contacts as well. And, you know, shout out to those early stage folks, because it's not easy navigating a show for the first time and trying to figure out how you should be talking to people, who you should be looking for, and so on and so forth.

3:27But I do want to note that for early stage brands that are looking to amplify their awareness, of course, we have a fantastic show that helps you do just that. It's called Elevator Talk. You've heard us talk about this on the show. Elevator Talk is a bi-monthly video series that highlights new, emerging, and disruptive brands from across the food and beverage industry. Each episode highlights five brands, and each episode is either food-centric or beverage-centric. And so we've produced, oh, geez, I think about 105 episodes since 2020. And great news, you're now going to be able to consume Elevator Talk via video, the regular video series, or on audio format.

4:10Elevator Talk's becoming part of Taste Radio, and the audio will be incorporated into our feed every week, or at least every other week. So you'll be able to stream Elevator Talk on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, whatever platform you listen to on a regular basis. all you have to do is subscribe to taste radio if you haven't already that's like actually a really good idea for listeners who haven't yet added taste radio to their regular stream or regular rotation of podcasts now is the time to do so but i'm really excited about this because i've heard from a lot of folks who are like i love elevator talk but i can't necessarily or don't necessarily have time to sit down and watch an hour-long show so in your car in traffic on On that business trip, now you have an opportunity.

5:00And it's great. I love, love the episodes we do because it really gets into the nitty gritty of what it takes to get started, to get some traction and to get scale in that first and second year. It's also a great entry point for a lot of these brands to enter into the community. It's like a launching point for them to debut and be like, this is what I'm doing. This is why I'm doing it and introducing themselves to the industry. And a lot of the brands, a lot of early stage brands have kind of gone through elevator talk in the early stages as they launch. And then they start gaining traction, gain awareness and start connecting a little bit more.

5:40It's not just an opportunity to gain awareness. It's an opportunity to get feedback and advice and insights from an industry expert. So every show has a co-host who is an investor, a retailer, a distributor, a consultant, who is an industry veteran and who has been there, done that, seen it all. And they are typically, actually all the time, because I can't think of a host that hasn't been, amazing when it comes to offering some really, really good advice on scaling strategies, marketing, design, what have you. And certainly from the investment community, it's really good to get in front of someone.

6:15When we do have investors as hosts, it's good to get in front of someone and practice that pitch. So the way to apply and be on the show, And as Mike alluded to, typically, if you're an early stage brand, one to three years in, we're going to say yes. If you're a little bit older than that, or if your brand's a little bit, you know, been on the market a little bit longer than that, it's possible we might say, you know, you might think of another platform, perhaps Taste Radio, to apply. But tasteradio.com slash elevator talk, that's one word, elevator talk, that's the way to apply. It's very quick.

6:44It'll take you three minutes, and you'll be on your way to being part of the Taste Radio family. You're already part of the Taste Radio family if you're listening, but like being on the show. I mean, you're joining the community too. You're joining the community and you're getting feedback. It's for you. It's for your brand, but it's also for you. It's a safe place to practice your pitch. You have a video that you can use after that. I mean, there's so many good reasons to do it. It's definitely not an unsafe place. I'll just put it that way. It's a safe place to get good feedback. You're not going to get robbed.

7:16Jeez. Damn. Ray guarantees it. Are you sure you're not in jail? I know. There's someone watching me right now, actually. Also, an amazing opportunity for early stage brands. Drum roll, please. Do we have any sound effects here? Drum roll. Actually, it's not just early stage brands. I would say it's every brand. And I teased this a couple weeks ago. Here it is. Nombase. We have launched Nombase. Or should I say BevNet and Nosh have launched Nombase. And Melissa Traverse, our director of community, runs the show over at Nombase. It is an incredible platform. I'm so enthusiastic and excited about this.

7:57I can't even explain what it is. Jackie, please help me. Yes, Ray, I will help you. And yes, Nombase is for everyone. So anyone that's in the CPG industry, whether you're a food brand, beverage brand, supplier, service provider, even health and beauty now, you can go to Nombase. And it is at its core, a hub for connection and community and insights. So we have a database featuring over 10 ,000, I think now, records of suppliers and service providers and partners within the CPG industry. You can go in there, you can filter, you can search, you can find people in your local area to help you build your company.

8:39We also have a central hub for a job board for press releases. pretty much anything that's going on within our world, you can find it on Nonbase. You can even request proposals through Nonbase. It's pretty cool. Like it's a, just look at it as a directory, a place to start when you, you know, you're trying to find your next partner. On top of that, we do have AI integrated into it too. And it's a really great tool that combs through all of our archives across all of our sites, BevNet, Nosh, BrewBound, and gives you very quick answers to your burning questions. And it also gives you links to articles to read more.

9:17What's really incredible about Nombase is that, and this is my understanding, and I should have a good understanding of this because we're talking about it. It's free, right, Jackie? Yes, it's free to explore. So anyone that wants to go to n-o-m-b-a-s-e.com, you can right now and you can jump in. Nom, nom, nombase. Outstanding. If it's not been clear, I really think that this is a game changer for our industry. And I'm not, this is not hyperbole. I feel like this is a tool that everyone will be able to use and probably use daily. So nonbase.com. And don't say we didn't tell you because it really is an amazing platform, tool, hub, whatever you want to call it.

9:55It's your tool. So if you have feedback, send it to ask at taste radio.com. We'd love to hear from you. There you go. All right, back to Expo West for a sec. Look, as I've penned on LinkedIn and Instagram, I did get some cynical comments when I was there at Expo West. And folks were like, oh, you're here? I thought you hate Expo West. I thought you told no one to come to Expo West, which is not entirely true. I think I mentioned a number of times that I think Expo West may not necessarily be the best use of time and resources for some early stage brands. However, I think that there was a good amount of Expo West 2025.

10:38Eh, in Expo West 2025, that wasn't worth it. In Expo West 2025, there was nothing really there that was particularly interesting. But John, actually, you put something on LinkedIn yesterday that I thought was poignant and helpful and put a good spin on the show. My Ray is delusional post to me? No, no, no, no, no. Oh, the other one. It was kind of an anti-Ray LinkedIn post, but you didn't actually come out there and say that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I still feel like if people are walking away complaining, then they're kind of, I don't know, not doing it right to a certain extent. You know, and I get like for brands exhibiting, there's costs that are associated with exhibiting.

11:25But, you know, it is interesting seeing the gap between companies that have, you know, there have been a couple that I've seen, like posted literally how much they've spent, like putting their boot together and all this and that. And then there's others that are like, God, I can't remember what the brand was that was like, we made this booth from trash, like basically from stuff people were throwing away, you know. And there's a lot of like, you know, a couple of companies that I talked to where they're like, yeah, well, I'm not paying to like have somebody like load my cases in. we like walked them over, you know, like it's free.

11:58A lot of it, again, is just how you choose to approach it and what you expect to get out of it. And I think, you know, for attendees who are looking for like, you know, this groundbreaking innovation, like generally speaking, this is not what that show is about. This is not like discovery show. This is like, you know, commercialization, you know, sell stuff sort of show, right? So you're just always going to seek products that are, I think more market ready than like, you know, really out there next generation ideas, nothing wrong with those things, but like this probably isn't the place for that.

12:31So what I felt like I walked away with was a lot of products that just really have their eye on like commercial success, you know, like this wasn't an event where everyone's got, I don't know, CBD or some unproven ingredient. Like I think there was a lot of hate on like, everyone's got a better for you soda. But for a lot of beverage brands, that's a pretty complimentary thing that at this point, like demand is proven. It doesn't need massive amounts of explanation. They're pretty market ready in that sense. The messed up part is that how long have you been waiting for that to be the trend? Well, I mean, it's been the trend before.

13:06It's always the trend somewhere in there. It's just not the fun thing to talk about, right? I think the people who are complaining, a lot of them are people who really enjoy, you know, big news or, or their first movers who wanted something a little different than protein and hot honey and dates or candy. You know, it's like, Mike, just, Mike, just name the four trends of Expo West. It took two seconds. I mean, like John said, it wasn't sexy. It wasn't like, oh my gosh, you have to understand cannabinoids and how they operate with the human body. It was more like, oh, everybody wants to try to do something that's easy to understand this year.

13:45Maybe they're getting the message that we pound into people's heads on taste radio all the time, which is that you should not be the educator. So innovation for us is typically something that's easy to understand that's a little bit different, like true fruit, chocolate on top of frozen fruit. That's innovation. That's pretty awesome. It's easy to understand. It's insurgent. It goes into a category that already exists, but you see it and you're like, I get it, you know, and, and you didn't know you needed it. And then when you eat it, you do. So I think hot honey's, you know, hot honey could be that, uh, protein everywhere.

14:20You know, we're just trying to figure out where we want to get our protein, not just protein. That's true. High protein, at least 15 grams of protein or 12 grams. There's like, we saw that, uh, sturdy sauce that had 80 grams of protein in the jar. So that was pretty awesome. You guys have referenced CBD a number of times. CBD was never or top of mind for me as, you know, an innovative ingredient. I think it was a very hot ingredient that a lot of people were using. But, you know, innovation for me and the way that Expo West has been presented in the past and in position was as a trend-setting show, a trend-setting opportunity for people or an opportunity for people to see trend-setting concepts and ideas.

14:58That's one opportunity, though. One opportunity. For sure. And I almost think that, and this is going to sound like it's, you know, I'm talking about our own brands in a more positive light, but maybe I am. You know, on Elevator Talk this week, we highlighted a brand called Cobb, C-O-B. And it's a brand that makes corn-free popcorn. So they're making popcorn out of sorghum. And I think that is a really interesting and innovative product and concept that hasn't necessarily been showcased before. And I didn't see it at Expo West. You're kind of just saying a different version of what I was saying, which is that I think that, But, you know, this is also a place that you need to, like Expo West, that is, like a lot of brands need to go prove that their idea is commercially viable before they do this show.

15:46You know, whereas in the heyday of anybody can raise money like for anything. Yeah, you could just spend some money on Expo West and take an idea and, you know, launch it there. But that's just not what the show is at this point. And again, I don't think that's like a bad thing. I don't think it really was ever like a trend setting show. It was just people's place where they were launching their attempt to take some commercial advantage of a trend that was out there, you know? Yeah. Like for instance, Power Up, the company that we saw that has collagen powder. Collagen has been a trend for a while.

16:23Their innovation is eat the powder. I mean, that's a small amount of innovation. I was excited about that. I think that's a massive amount of consumer behavior change. Sure, it is. But you can also use it the regular way too. So sure, they made it so you could eat it, but you can also do it the way you, I put on my oatmeal too. I feel like there was like a lot of like incremental innovation and people like doing things in like small steps rather than just trying to be super buzzworthy and trying to make a splash. Like Blue Hour was there and this is literally instant scrambled eggs and the only ingredients are eggs, salt, and pepper, but you can microwave them and they make scrambled eggs.

17:05I think like it's not as sexy, but we're going back to like basics almost because we went so far one way that we're like almost correcting a little bit because there was so many adaptogens and so many functional ingredients out there. And it's like, what does the consumer actually care about at the end of the day? A dill ranch tortilla chip. You just need that. It's delicious. Good eating. did it well no i i think jackie by the way jackie you're 100 right and i think that you know maybe maybe this is a bit of a correction the other thing is that we're still just chipping away at like all these categories that have seen you know mostly these sort of global flavors come to market where there were no brands doing you know dumplings for example like i don't know five or so years ago, not maybe none, not nearly as many as there are now.

17:57And the same could be said for the variety of just dips and sauces that are from other cuisines that now feel totally viable here. And I think those are sort of maybe just, again, not as sexy from a like pure like innovation perspective, because they're not like new ideas. They're just packaged commercially viable like versions of them. So I think, you know, there's plenty of runway out there for what we saw at the show, especially since I think a lot of these brands are just stealing share from like legacy brands that are out there as opposed to really out there innovation that's trying to truly blaze its own trail.

18:42So I feel better about like what we're doing right now, which is like, you know, a bit of a land grab of sorts. And I'd say that about like, even the better for you sodas, like what is that doing? I mean, it's stealing share from like the big legacy diet soda brands. So that just seems more achievable than, hey, I'm going to convince you to like eat or drink in some new way and educate you on an ingredient that you don't know about, which is kind of why I use CBD as an example. I think, you know, that, that particular year as a quick tangent, I felt like everyone had a CBD thing. And if you went to 10 booths, you got 10 different explanations about, you know, what CBD does and, you know, where it comes from and all that stuff.

19:24Yeah, I think just to wrap this up, a lot of this depends on what your definition of innovation is and how you view innovative concepts. And based on everything I'm hearing and based on everyone's points in this conversation, I think, you know, they're all valid. It's not necessarily about trying to find the shiny new object. I think it's about trying to improve people's lives in a more positive way and doing it in a way that is as intuitive as possible. And I think that is where that incremental innovation, you know, making things incrementally better does really shine through. And it did, you know, for certain brands and products at the show.

20:05But that brings me to another point. I didn't see a ton of new beverage products at Expo West. We have showcased certain categories on BevNet.com that reveal new products or introduce new products to the show. but it seems like there was a bit of a dearth. And upon reflection, listening back on our last episode, didn't seem like we talked a heck of a lot about beverages. There definitely were a lot of beverages and a lot of new beverages there. You probably just didn't go to the right place. But I think this is another place where the invention of new, I don't know, I can't really say there was a lot that felt like it goes in that bucket, especially since I think the opportunities that are out there for beverage companies are pretty straightforward and it is better for you sodas it's protein it's energy there are a lot of like you know alcohol alternative na cocktails a couple of like na beer companies so i think again we're just in one of those places where you know i think there's a lot of optimism in beverage for the categories that are out there that seem like they have opportunities.

21:12So no knock on the beverage industry, I think to some extent. It's kind of nice that there's a couple of obvious places to focus right now. Yeah, I was gonna say, I was in love with PKN, which is pecan, a maker of pecan milks. They came out with a new barista blend that was fantastic. They showcased that at their booth. And then I think Palmas was the other one that I really enjoyed. But again, that was at the Snackshot event. And then Jubilees. Jubilees was at the Setup CPG event that we attended as a maker of organic flavored milk for kids. It comes in juice box format. And that is a fantastic looking brand and a fantastic tasting brand as well.

21:56We also tried a specialty craft soda, they called it, specifically for golfers called Swinger. That was pretty tasty. You're not serious, are you? Do I look like I'm joking? i don't know i can't see i'm i'm having a hard time it was it was it's a real product we tried it and it was pretty good yeah it's tasty is that the wait is it is that the target consumer really mm-hmm okay and the um the the can looks like knickers it looks like golf knickers interesting i guess the apocalypse truly is upon us you know who we missed this is a big miss for me because it's one of my favorite now-now cocktails.

22:39We missed the founders of Ish. They were there. Oh, Ish, yeah. And they had left and we missed them. And I'm so bummed about that. I mean, like really bummed. Mike hasn't been able to stop thinking about it since last Friday. Like didn't meet Arsene Wenger, bummed. Yeah. 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.

23:34do a live interview with one of the founders of June at Nosh Live Winter 2024. So if you want to get a head start, check out that video. It's free on nosh.com. Also, Pistachio, someone else who was another brand that was featured on Elevator Talk, a maker of pistachio butters. They had like a pistachio fountain? Yeah. Pistachio butter fountain where you can dip things into it. Oh my gosh, it was incredible. It was absolutely amazing. Why were they guarding it from you, John? They weren't guarding it from me. I was standing right there next to them the whole time. John tried to lick the fountain.

24:09I did not. He did eat none of that. He did eat like seven eighths of a jar of the crunchy pistachio. Finished it today. So good. Speaking of beverages, there was also HiQ. I think that's how you say it. It's HY.Q. It was a canned electrolyte beverage that was like a better for you Gatorade. And that was actually really, really delicious as well. And they're just launching. Nice. Well, Mike's been chomping at the bit. He's got products in front of me. He's been picking at them all hour here. I can't have Pulpito in front of me for more than five minutes, in fact, without eating it and just having some of the mango.

24:44I mean, we talked about them on the show before and we'll probably talk about them again. Don't worry. I've got, speaking of protein, I've got a new collagen product called Crush Tonic here. It's strawberry milk collagen, banana milk collagen. There's also vanilla collagen as well. it's just grass-fed bovine collagen uh inspired by the korean diet and uh it's really tasty stuff like uh i like collagen i think it makes me feel better it's good for your joints and stuff so yeah as uh also mary from power up educated me on as well i mean that's just going to be playing on a loop in my head forever i feel like power up is going to be another like honey mama's I don't know.

25:26Mike's going to mention that brand twice an episode. It's partially love and partially I'm scarred for life. She's amazing. And then we got some new Onyx product here. And this one was one I wasn't expecting. It's Onyx Instant. And they've taken like some of their best SKUs, Tropical Weather, Monarch, and Costa Rica, Las Lajas Natural. And they've turned it into an instant coffee that I'm excited to try. You just open it up and you've got like this little pack, make it instant. We gotta try this, John. Good stuff. If Adam Stern were here, he'd be like, Onyx, legit hip hop group. For sure, for sure.

26:08And then, you know, the other one that I have in front of me here is, it's an interesting name, Dry Water, but I mean, it makes sense. It's powder. This one's raspberry lemon. I tried it earlier. This stuff's really tasty and I really like the packaging and quality 10 calories for a stick and big flavor. Yeah. Dry water also recently featured on Elevator Talk. Elevator Talk. Yeah. What does John have? John is also just like taking out something over there. Just drowning in hummus over there. Oh, is that the Ithaca? Yeah. The Ithaca Graza. I can see it from here in that bright yellow green. The Ithaca Graza, we talked about that last week.

26:43Delicious stuff. And then also got this pile. Oh, there's more flavors of Cedar's Reserve Hummus. Oh, yeah. Oh, wow. So they have flavors like harissa and Lebanese zatar and tahini. They have a red pepper one. They've got a bunch of different flavors. These look pretty good. Zatar? Yeah, not zatar. I don't know. Whatever. You made me do this super late. I like when Ray corrects you. Anyway, these look quite nice. So I'm going to go have a whole pile of hummus after this. Nice, nice. I want to call out a product that isn't here because I ate it as soon as I got home. Just put your face in the hummus.