Fave, Phony & Fading. Brands, Deals & Trends Defining CPG.

0:10Hello friends and thanks for tuning into Taste Radio, the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food or beverage. I'm Ray Latif, the editor and producer of Taste Radio, and I'm with my co-hosts John Craven, Melissa Travers, and Mike Schneider. In this episode, we revisit Southern California's premier CPG competition, unpack the acquisition of a leading ANA beverage brand, and explore how meal kit companies and a product scanning app are impacting consumer purchasing decisions. Well, three of us have spent quite a bit of time in California over the past week. Melissa, I apologize for your inability to make it out to the Golden State, But it seems like you had a nice week yourself.

1:00I sure did. I've been holding down the fort in the Boston area. Thank you for doing that. There you go. There you go. So the three people, of course, who were in California last week were Mike, John, and myself. And they're for various reasons. Mike was on vacation for a little bit. Palm Springs, baby. Palm Springs. And John and I were... I learned how to relax for a day. John and I were in San Diego for Naturally San Diego's Naturally Rising Pitch Competition. This is their sixth, it was their sixth annual competition. I was lucky enough to host the competition. It's my fourth time. And John.

1:33Right. There's no such thing as luck. That's pure skill. You did a great job again. I mean, seen some of the videos. I appreciate it. Yeah. Sorry, I missed that. It's really fun. I mean, I'm telling you, it's all about the community there. There were probably 300 to 400 people at the event. And I mean, I was really impressed with the amount of passion and love really for brands in the space and the founders who've created them. I think folks in the audience, John, you were there. And certainly once we got going, it was extremely loud in that room. And for me, the five brands that presented were all really spectacular.

2:11And I thought all the pitches were great. There was a winner, obviously, and that winner was Fave. Oh, nice. Fave founded by Ryan Raich. Fave is a maker of, well, drink powders. Drink powders. It's the new Kool-Aid, man. It's better for you to drink powders. There's no functional benefit to it, but it's like, imagine Kool-Aid or Crystal Light. It's awesome. I mean, he mentioned Kool-Aid as a bit of the inspiration for sure. So, yeah, and, you know, it's interesting. Like, it was, you know, five brands that were kind of all over the CPG map. You had a shampoo bar, a sunscreen brand, gummies. You always had Fave.

2:49A Mezcal RTD. And a Mezcal RTD and I don't know, you know, maybe I'm biased, but Everett just seemed to do pretty well in these things. Partially because I think there's an easy story to tell about a high velocity brand and whatnot that, you know, for something like a sunscreen brand is totally, it's just a totally different business, not better or worse. But yeah, it was fun. Yeah, I mean, my guess is that most of the folks in the audience and most of the folks that are involved with NSD represent food or beverage brands. So sometimes I think it might be a little bit more difficult to get yourself in the mindset that, say, a sunscreen brand or a shampoo brand might be the one to break out.

3:30Because you don't know. You're not necessarily part of that industry or category. And for anyone who thinks that John said make a drinkable sunscreen or shampoo, that's not what he said. We've had drinkable sunscreen in New Beverage Showdown. And in case you've forgotten, did not forget. That was something. But yeah, congratulations to Sunmud, Fave, Oku, Mezzo Beverages, and Flora Flora. Once again, they all did fantastic. And obviously special congratulations to Ryan from Fave. And a huge thanks to the team at NSD. Renee Solaris, who is the executive director, just does such a fantastic job. She and her team were just on top of everything and really made sure that the event was memorable.

4:11and useful and exciting for everyone. So congrats on that as well. You feel like that's a good warmup for the next big competition for you? I think it might be. I think it might be. You know, the New Beverage Showdown is my bread and butter, I would say. And it's one of my favorite things to do throughout the year. Of course, the New Beverage Showdown, the next edition that is, will be happening at BevNet Live, New York City, 2026. That's happening on June 10th and 11th. I, for one, cannot wait. And it's going to be here before anyone knows it. I mean, today is May 1st, and guess what? It's a month and a half away, which is crazy.

4:53Well, it's still plenty of time to apply. Not really. Well, not really. You can't apply by today, right? Not a lot of time to apply for the New Beverage Showdown. Ray, how many New Beverage Showdowns have you emceed at this point, do you think? Well, my first one was in 2013. It was the New York City edition of BevNet Live. And so this would be, let's see, if there's two a year, I can do the math. Is it 25, 26? Oh, minus the COVID ones plus the COVID virtual ones. Do those count? Yeah, of course they count. So I think they're sitting on the edge of their seats. So much math. So how do you keep it so fresh and exciting every time?

5:32There you go. I think it's the contestants that do it. And Ray's just like, he's the perfect person to set someone up. He comes up on stage. He does this very professional, you know, introduction. And then, you know, he makes people feel cool, supported, brings them up on stage. They do their pitch, brings them off the stage, you know, brings the next one up. It just feels cool to see the whole thing happen and to also talk to people afterwards about how professional it is, I guess. I think it's the freshly pressed Yuko Boss Blazer. Yeah. Never lets them down. You know, shout out to my dry cleaners who are good people and always make sure that I'm looking sharp for every event.

6:17I mean, if you forgot to pack that, I think you would go up there and be like Superman without escape. Yeah. And a nice warm up to BevNet Live, of course, is our Taste Radio meetup in Austin, which is happening on May 7th. I am thrilled for this event. Me too. 5 to 7.30 p.m. at the headquarters of NutriBolt, the maker of C4 and major investor in Bloom. This is an event you really don't want to miss if you are based in the Austin area or anywhere near Austin or if you're visiting the Austin area. Just head to tasteradio.com slash meetups to register. We'd love for you to register so we can know how many sandwiches to bring, how many bottles of water that we'll have to have.

6:56I was talking to Jake DeSico at the beverage forum about the Taste Radio meetup in the Nutribolt headquarters. He says that place is phenomenal. I can't wait. I'm so excited. Once again, thank you so much to Nutribolt for hosting us in Austin. Of course, thank you so much to our event partners, Vibrant Ingredients, Belay Solutions, The Angel Group, Corner Market Communications, and Next Foods. I imagine that we're going to see a few non-alcoholic beverages or founders that have started non-alcoholic beverage brands. I'm specifically talking about adult non-alcoholic, which is a category that, you know, I think we can call it relatively booming.

7:38I mean, it's just one of those spaces that seem to be of interest among retailers, consumers, distributors. Everybody wants a piece of this space. And it's because, you know, people are moderating their alcohol consumption. People are looking at this opportunity to create brands that are going to resonate with younger consumers. because as we know, younger consumers aren't drinking as much. And I think it's pretty obvious that the proof is in the pudding when we look at the acquisition that happened earlier this week when St. Agriestis, the maker of Phony Negroni, was acquired by the wine group for an undisclosed sum.

8:15St. Agriestis is a Brooklyn-based maker of non-alcoholic beverages. Their Phony Negronis, and we've talked about these on the show, are just phenomenal. When you think about a Negroni, there's a very specific flavor that you expect that you want. And to create a non-alcoholic version that is without compromise, or, you know, for me at least without compromise, is the real special thing that Santa Grisas has done that, you know, there are other brands that have gotten kind of close, but there's, La Paz, absolutely for sure. But when it comes to the standard, right, of the standard in this space, Santa Grisas is that.

8:48And so, you know, while it wasn't surprising to see that the wine group, you know, decided to make this acquisition, I think it's a little surprising. I think it's telling that there is a lot of strategic interest in this space and that this will not be the last acquisition in ANA that we see. I wouldn't be surprised if we see another one of these, at least in the next 12 to 18 months. Yeah, no. And I was going to say a little bit surprising in that, you know, it is, as the name suggests, the wine group, the wine group, which has brands like Franzia and Mayomi and Woodbridge. And it's interesting to see them hop into like an NA cocktail brand.

9:27You know, I think that is something that should be kind of exciting that it's not just one of the usual suspects picking this up. I think more acquirers is never a bad thing. And, you know, certainly, I don't know, this feels like the biggest brand in that set, at least modern set that, you know, is getting picked up. So, I mean, that's pretty darn cool. Well, that is the thing that's interesting about it is that the wine group are the ones picking it up and they know everything there's to know about marketing, distribution, selling of wine, but what do they know about this? Please don't mess it up, guys.

10:04Please don't mess it up. We love the phony Negroni. You know, I think St. Agriestas is a great example of a beverage brand who uses glass to be perceived as a more premium, higher-end product. I know it's Mission accomplished. Yeah, yeah. They really did such a nice job with that. They do. And I mean, not to take anything away from some of the others that, and I mentioned Lapos and I'll mention it again. I mean, like I put those two as, you know, my top two non-Elk Negronis and now Lapos also has their Negroni water and they're experimenting with other kinds of cocktails as well. And it's cool to see that there are so many that are so close and that someone like a Ray could say, wow, I, I'm okay with having this versus a Negroni.

10:49Like, I know you love Negronis, so it's cool to see how far the industry has come. And, you know, at the beverage forum, I was talking to Monica Corniture from Madasse and, you know, it's cool to see her take her liquid and say, Hey, this is, this is mild fashion. Open it up. And the nose hits you and you're like, oh, that's alcohol. And people just can't believe it when they're drinking this. We're getting so, so close to even the burn. I'm sure it's coming. Yeah, well, congratulations to the team at St. Agriestis. They are going to maintain production in Brooklyn, but I feel like, as you mentioned, Mike, I really hope that the quality and the standard that they have established remains the same because what they make is fantastic.

11:32Indeed. Yes, absolutely. I do like a non-alcoholic cocktail every so often. And for dinner, you know, pre-dinners is always the best time to have a cocktail. And lately, I feel like I have just not had a lot of time to make dinner. I don't know. I've been busier than ever lately. It's been really tough. You guys have been traveling. Yeah, maybe that's what it is. I've just been on the road so much. You need a hug? No, no, no. Thank you. Did it seem like I needed a hug? Yeah, sorry about that. Listener, give him a hug. Needs an extra bottle of hand sanitizer. Yeah. I used to think that meal kit companies like Blue Apron would make my life a little bit easier.

12:08And I had a Blue Apron account for a number of months, I guess. And it feels like the whole point of these meal kits was really to make life easier and make people's dinners a lot simpler. And I don't know. I just I think that I'd hung around for a minute. And then it just seems like there's less and less interest because I because why? I don't know why. I mean, maybe it's just because it doesn't make my life easier. Well, so why did you cancel your subscription? Well, honestly, the food wasn't that good. Yeah. I mean, I feel like the food wasn't as flavorful, as delicious as I could just make on my own without all the packages.

12:46Some frozen Trader Joe's stuff? I don't really eat that stuff as much. Come on. You're like a Trader Joe's super fanboy. Well, the Trader Joe's ravioli is pretty good. There you go. They're Belgian chocolate. Yeah, but maybe that's the reason. Not frozen, though. True. True, true. But maybe there are, you know, just easier options like frozen meals from Trader Joe's that people find as a more reasonable and higher value option than meal kits. And there's no subscription either. I mean, it just seems like one of those things that's kind of in the middle. You know, certainly there's as those meal companies have been around in that era of those like things like DoorDash and Grubhub and Uber Eats have like gotten super good.

13:28it like really i mean they're like i don't know especially uber eats i feel like such a ubiquitous brand and like out-of-home advertising you know that's just trying to sell you on like convenience right and then on the flip side i think there's other companies that have done a really good job marketing to like the home cook you know i don't know i think of all the like you know made in hex clad all that stuff we're like you know if you're really into cooking like you're kind of not no offense to those box subscriptions you're kind of not really like cooking you're like assembling and following instructions really precise, which is kind of the, at least for me, the worst part about cooking.

14:02It's for the people who love Legos. So I don't know. We just covered in Nosh that Fresh Realm filed for bankruptcy. They also offloaded Blue Apron, which, you know, you just talked about, Ray. And certainly you're not the only one who isn't that interested in meal kits anymore. The subscriptions for meal kits are declining. But what I thought was really interesting is that there are some other options that seem to be having an increase in sales. Kroger, for example, they have a ready to eat option. I think they also have meal kits as well. And then HelloFresh has a ready to eat meal program called Factor.

14:40And then Tempo is actually Kroger's ready to eat program. And both of those focus on high protein, keto, special diets, that kind of thing. So there are different ways to reach those consumers, but it seems like Like consumers aren't really that interested in cooking their own food with maybe subpar ingredients. So you have to spend all the time that you would have to cook. And oftentimes the quality of the ingredients aren't that great. And having a subscription is kind of annoying. And if you travel. Yeah, exactly. It's just not too much. Yeah. Yeah. And at the end of the day, the subscription part of, I think, meal kits is something that holds me back.

15:19And I think holds a lot of other consumers back. Because, you know, you might want to shop on your own terms and you want the kids to come in when you feel like you need them as opposed to every single week or every single, you know, every couple of weeks. And I think optionality is a big part of this. And unfortunately, I think the optionality and variety sometimes is lacking with these meal kits as well. So perhaps that's a big reason behind it. I think, you know, there's no sushi meal kit. There's no sushi meal kit. No steak and martini night. Well, no, but this goes back to exactly what you were talking about, John, which is that the advent of food delivery programs or food delivery companies like an Uber Eats or a DoorDash or a Grubhub has made it that much easier and more convenient to get the kind of food that you actually want without having to cook it yourself.

16:02Or plan in advance. I think that's the other thing with it. It's like they're kind of designed for people who are like not super great at planning, but it requires planning, you know? Yeah, it really does. You also have the Hungry Roots of the World. So they help you with meal planning, recipe planning. They also have a bunch of ready-to-eat options. That's also another option for folks who want efficient meals, but don't necessarily want a subscription to them. Indeed, indeed. You know what? In my whole life, yes, I do shop at Trader Joe's pretty often, but in my whole life, I've never been at an Aldi.

16:38I've never shopped in an Aldi. Have you been there? No, yeah. I feel like I didn't find that much. Grandma D 'Angelo. Yeah? Loved Aldi so much. I always heard that Aldi is great for, I'm just going to call it what it is, like cheap food, right? I mean. I'm loyal to Market Basket. It's like off brands and, I mean, they're Aldi brands. Do they have a pretty good like frozen selection there? Yeah. They do? Uh-huh. Okay. All right. Well, anyway, in the news this week, Aldi decided that they were going to eliminate 44 ingredients from its private label line, which I thought was pretty interesting. Good on you.

17:08Seems like there's a lot of retailers moving in that direction. And I don't know. I mean, I never really thought of Aldi as being like a better for you retailer, but maybe they're kind of moving in that direction. You should give it a try, Ray. You should just go check it out because it is an experience and it's a very different experience, but going with an open mind and, you know, tell yourself you're going to spend like a hundred bucks at least and see what you come away with. I would want to know what I'm eating and I would want to know exactly what's inside some of these products, you know, and do it in a really efficient way, which is related to a podcast that you recently published, Melissa?

17:41Yeah. So at this past Expo West, I feel like I heard more and more people talking about the Yucca app. So that's an app that consumers use when they're grocery shopping and you can, you know, scan a product and it gives you a rating of whether it's good or bad. So I heard so many brands talking about their rating and how it's impacting their pitches at retailers and their retail velocity. So I did have Gabriela Sabag, Wine Grad. So she runs the U.S. business for the app. And she joined the podcast to talk about how brands can, you know, fix a bad score. So if you scan your item on there and you're not doing that well, she kind of explained some of the things that brands are doing to fix those.

18:24She talked about how to be one of the suggested brands. So when a customer scans a product and it gets a bad score, then another item is suggested. So she talked a little bit about how to be one of those brands that are suggested. And I think she said something like 66 % of the suggested brands actually get bought. So that's a big deal. And then also how their rating system works, of course, on the Non-Base podcast. Interesting. Yeah, I wasn't necessarily familiar with Yucca before the podcast. And so I feel like this is something I'm going to use. And I wonder if it'll sort of direct me to brands that I haven't considered before or just are not aware of.

19:03Put it on one of those packaged slices of cake, Ray. Wait, what? Had to bring that up again. I'm sorry. I wonder what the Yucca app thinks of a brand like Tofu Go. And this is a brand that we featured on Elevator Talk a few months back. Very interesting brand. John, what is that? It's like a shelf stable. Reminds me of that walking tamale brand package. Yes. But it's just like nuggets of tofu that are individually wrapped with inside said pouch. Yeah, but let me ask you a quick question before you bite into this. Yes. Do you think this is going to be a sweet or savory product? Well, I thought it was going to be sweet.

19:41Okay, savory. Yeah, I don't know. I thought it was going to be sweet when I first saw it. And then when I got my hands on it, I knew it was going to be savory. Looks like barbecue. It says soy BBQ on it. Right, but I'd never seen the flavors. At first, I thought this was going to be a sweet product. And I was like, okay, it's going to be like a midday square. Yes, exactly. But you know what? It is like a midday square, except it's like also... It's very glazed. Vegan beef turkey? Because it has the sauce that you want in there. And it tastes like a pocket hot pot. It tastes like a pocket hot pot?

20:13Have you had a hot pot? Oh, hot pot. Yes. Okay. Oh, sorry. Saying it in Chinese doesn't help you, but. Well, it was great having Caroline Day on Elevator Talk. I mentioned we featured Tofu Go on an episode a few months back. And it's a really interesting concept. And I feel like the question that I had at the time and the question I still have right now is, who is this for? You know, a savory snack sounds great. Obviously, a higher protein snack sounds great, but not everyone loves tofu. And I think tofu in a package format like this, I don't know, you really want to be specific in terms of who your target consumer is.

20:50First is for people who love tofu. Okay. Second is for people who love savory tofu and these specific spice profiles and they want it on the go. I mean, even people who love hot pot can't eat hot pot every day. This gives you like a little bit of that taste on the go. And you get three of these for 120 calories, 12 grams of protein. And what do you think? What do you think of the texture? You know, I feel like this is for people who want beef jerky without the actual meat or whatever. You know what I mean? It does have a little beef jerky quality. You want the protein. You want the satiation. Okay.

21:25Well, I want to ask, because this is really throwing me off, next to the Tofu Go wrapper, looks like a vial of blood. What is that, John? This is, we do mandatory drug testing. I bring all the weird stuff today. Just on mic, though. I guess. Just to be clear. It's on blood test for the day. It's not looking good. No. Oh, jeez. No, I don't know. I'm starting MethNet next week. It says elastin. Is that what that is? Yes. And what is that? Again, I have no idea. It was on the table. It's for your skin. I brought it. Why do you keep asking John? It was next to John. Does it help you stretch your muscles?

21:58I don't know. Yeah, it's for your skin. I mean, it's for your muscle flexibility or whatever. You guys, it's collagen peptides. Okay, there you go. It's collagen. And so this is a topical? No, I'm drinking. I'm so scared. Okay, so just to give our listeners some context here. Are you sure you're not drinking lotion or something? It legitimately looks like a vial of blood. You know, when you go to the doctor and they collect blood from you. But clearly it's a shot. You just take it all at once. Yep. It's called Elastin. Okay. I don't know where you got that from or if it was sent to us. It was sent to us in a big box.

22:32Okay. So we have many of these. We have many of these. You can have some if you want. Okay. Would you like to try now? No, I'm good. First. Is the color red? It looks like it. It looks like blood. Beet juice? It smells like it tastes good. Okay. Yay, it does. It tastes like cherry. All right. That's good. That's good. Okay, good. All right. Cherry juice. Interesting. hopefully you were supposed to drink it okay moving on to more traditional beverages John's crushing some hover what is hover hover it's a sparkling matcha drink okay with the coconut water base this one's a lemon you zoo comes in this little can is that our taste radio in New York yeah yeah yeah cute it's pretty pretty darn tasty yeah has a little sort of Pokemon anime vibes going on in terms of the packaging.

23:19Very nice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then Melissa, you've got a can of something. You've got some powder, a spice. I was speaking about New York Meetup. Yeah, exactly. So this is from the New York Meetup. This is Anavana. There is a lovely founder named Amulya Paniam. I may be butchering that name, but she brought this product with her. It is a ground up lentil and spice blend. This reminded me a little bit of Chutney Punch. Except that's food. Exactly. Yeah. That's not just spice. That's food in there. Exactly. And it's high protein. So let's see here. You're adding chickpeas. Yeah. So it's got some protein in it and it's really tasty.

23:56Like it does add a little bit of... Not that spices aren't food, but that's food food. Right, right, right. This is sort of an additional source of nutrients for whatever you're eating. So yeah, I thought this was... You could put chutney punch on that. Yeah, right. You could put them both. And by the way, you should. You should use them all. Nice. And then you've got, what is this now? You've got a can. I can't see this. I also grabbed a can of nectar pop from our fridge upstairs. I didn't actually read the can that carefully before I started drinking it. So I took a sip and it's just, it's delicious.

24:26It's so tasty. This is the black cherry. They use maple water, which is always fun. It's 45 calories for a can, nine grams of sugar and super tasty. And then I started reading more and they have probiotic cultures and there's maple inulin. But really what got me was the flavor. Yeah. Looks amazing, actually. I love it. It's really good. It sounds delicious. Black cherry more specifically. Yeah. Yep. So this came a couple of weeks ago. It's the Baba's Saturday sauce. And it is a phenomenal shakshuka starter. We got it. And, you know, our sample captain, Colin, he never tried shakshuka before. So I drove home, made some with the sauce, came back, and now he's had it and he loved it.

25:09It was amazing. It's so easy to make shakshuka. It's easy to make shakshuka anyway. Everybody knows that. But now it's way easier. Yeah. How many shakshukas can you make with that jar? I made six eggs worth of shakshuka. Nice. Okay. Saturday sauce. Nice. Good stuff. That brings us to the end of this episode of Taste Radio. Thank you so much for listening. Taste Radio is a production of BevNet.com Incorporated. Our audio engineer for Taste Radio is Joe Kratchy. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt. And our video editor is Ryan Galang. Our social marketing manager is Amanda Smirlinski. And our designer is Amanda Huang.