For Ryan Phillippe, The Real Drama Is In The Beverage Aisle

0:10Hello friends! I'm Ray Lateef and you're tuned into Taste Radio, the leading podcast for entrepreneurs, makers, makers, and innovators, and innovators in the food industry. industry. Forget Hollywood. For actor and investor Ryan Phillippe, the real drama is unfolding in the beverage aisle. Speaking from BevNet Live LA 2025, Ryan, attending alongside Pretty Tasty co-founder Scarlett Lung, explains why functional beverages, credible health benefits, and shelf Self-grabbing design are the factors that separate forgettable brands from the next breakout hit.

0:55Hey, folks. Welcome back to the Taste Radio studio. I'm Ray Lateef, the editor and producer of Taste Radio. And we're here at BevNet Live LA 2025 in Marina del Rey. And I am extraordinarily honored to be sitting down with the one and only Ryan Phillippe. Ryan, how are you? I'm doing well, Ray. The honor is mine. And thank you for having me. Well, thanks so much for coming to BevNet Live. I assume this is your first time coming to this event. It is. It is my first beverage conference, full stop. Yeah. Okay. So what's your first impressions? It's amazing. It's great energy. I've tried so many samples.

1:30As I said to you before we started talking on air, the bathrooms here at BevNet are very active. Yeah. And clean, I hope. Relatively. Relatively. Uh-oh. But that's not your responsibility. Everything's our responsibility. We take responsibility for everything that happens here, whether, you know, there's, well, I probably won't go into that. Anyway, you know, I was really happy to see your name on the attendee list here, but I was also a little surprised. I didn't realize that you were interested in beverages. What really sparked your love, passion, interest in the beverage industry? Well, Ray, I like to invest in industries with extraordinarily low success rates, whether it's entertainment, fashion, hospitality, or beverage.

2:15No, I mean, I think from a very early age in life, I've been fascinated by new products in this space and new flavors and gravitated towards those things. I invest in a brand or two already, and I want to learn as much as I can about the industry itself. And so that's primary reason for my being here. It's a fun industry, right? It is, absolutely. Yeah. And there's so many emerging categories. There's so much potential within those categories. I think there's still ways in which you can find types of drinks that are not oversaturated, that don't have a ton of competition. And I think that's really interesting to me.

2:51The best part about working for BevNet is being able to go into our coolers every day, open it and see new beverage brands. And there's a new one that gets there. There's probably about five or six new brands that come into our coolers all the time. And then upstairs, I mean, there's hundreds of them. Hundreds. Literally. Yeah. Yeah. All types. Tons of mushroom drinks. Various energy drinks, which I do tend to stay away from a little bit just because you don't want to get too too overexcited. But yeah, I know it's really interesting and people have been very friendly. Well, those are the two things I think that really drive people to this space is that it is interesting.

3:29The rewards can sometimes be remarkable. Enormous. Yes. We just heard from the founders of Poppy this morning, which went from basically launch to a$2 billion brand in five years. Very rare. It doesn't happen a lot. But when it does, it is really eye-opening. And it happens in the beverage industry. Right. When you talk about trying to identify a brand like a Poppy or an emerging category, what is it you look for? What really makes you think or makes you confident that a particular brand or space could be successful in the future? Well, again, I mean, you know, you want to try to find an area in which there isn't a ton of competition where you feel like there's something that you could either contribute that people actually need.

4:14There's all this new discussion around supplementation. and there's a dissemination of information now with social media where people are a lot more educated than they used to be about what will and won't work for them from a health standpoint in particular. So I'm really, at this point, fascinated with and interested in the functional beverage space. I just think that as we go forward, along the lines of what I was just saying, people are going to gravitate toward drinks that are beneficial to them from a health standpoint, and I find that really exciting. Taste is really important, but it seems like modern consumers really want your beverage to do something for you as well.

4:56I think the difficult part of functional beverages, or at least the biggest hurdle for founders in that space, is education. How do I get people to know what I'm doing? What's that point of reference that I can make easily? So when you're investing in or partnering with beverage brands, it probably isn't a major leap from what's already out there. At least I would think, because I think some investors that I've talked to are really afraid of complicated stories, complicated stories for the ingredients or formulations. Right. Well, you know, and part of what I was learning today and something that I'll incorporate into projects I'm involved with in the future is getting that one minute pitch down.

5:33So it isn't overcomplicated. So you let people know why they might need it, how it's going to work for them. And I think that shorthand is crucial when you're trying to launch or sell or promote a beverage. When someone is making that one minute pitch to you, how do you know if they're actually going to do what they say they're going to do or if it's just some sort of idea? I guess what I'm asking is, how do you believe a founder? How do you believe in a founder's ability to actually execute? Right. I mean, with any investment, I think it does start with the founder and whether or not you believe in their vision overall.

6:10You know, I'm someone who has studied nutrition and fitness and supplementation for decades now myself. So I have a fair knowledge base in that regard. So I can kind of see through what may be, you know, BS. Yeah, you can say it. So I'm discerning and educated to that end. And so for me, it's not as much of a mystery as to whether or not something actually makes sense in terms of what they're trying to say a drink may or may not accomplish. Yeah, because I'm imagining that there are folks here at the event and there are folks watching in their offices or at home and saying, hey, I want to pitch in front of Ryan.

6:47But, you know, in addition to being able to discern whether something is BS or not, you also have to make sure that it's going to work on the market. Are there some, when you talk about, you know, being involved in some beverage brands, are there specific categories or segments of the industry that you're like, hey, I know you talked about, you know, white space or a particular brand attacking, you know, a category that doesn't have a lot of competition. But, you know, things like, I don't know, soda, for example, or gut health drinks or protein drinks or, you know, is there a specific category that you're really particularly focused on right now?

7:21Right. You know, there's obviously a move away from traditional soda and the lack of health benefits there. And I've also been lucky enough to have a few friends who have succeeded in the industry. So I'm an investor in Mamita's, which is a tequila soda, which I think is a great product. And I really do believe in my friend, Matt Levine, has chlorophyll water, which is doing incredibly well. My friend Scarlett Lung, who I'm here with today, and she's kind of chaperoning me. She's right there. It's doing great with her company. Pretty tasty. So I'm lucky to have people that I can bounce ideas off, ask questions and kind of be, you know, educated by.

8:00Yeah. And I think they can also help you wade through what may work and what may not work. Although someone might say, wait, a collagen drink that's going to work on the market or no, Scarlett, I'll take it easy now. I'm just saying, you know, in general, it wouldn't be the first thing that came to mind, say, five years ago. But again, people's needs are changing. You know, you got there's all these people that you follow Huberman and Gary Brecka and those types. And there's so much information out there now that people didn't have access to before unless they were sitting with a nutritionalist.

8:35You know, a lot of people can't even afford to have those sessions with with a doctor in that in that space or in that realm. So I think that a lot of our information is coming and you hope for some kind of virality attached to whatever that product is. You know, you hope that it catches on with the TikTok crowd, with Instagram and that sort of thing. And I think that there are people out there who are really skilled at even that and trying to manufacture those. Yeah. You've been in the business, the business of Hollywood for a long time. Are there any parallels to Hollywood in the beverage industry?

9:12I think, as I mentioned in the very beginning, it's a difficult arena to succeed in. You know, there's a lot of competition. There are new movies, new TV shows constantly. Same way there's new beverages every single year. I mean, you would know best. So I think there's parallels that way. And, you know, the marketing, I think that's a key and crucial component. You know, the way the package looks, whether it's a film, television or beverage, it's got to catch your eye. It's got to draw you in. It's got to hold your attention. So I think there's parallels there. Yeah, the marketing is really interesting, right?

9:49I mean, at the end of the day, you know, you see a billboard, you see a label design, but what's inside really matters most, right? Absolutely. With a can or what you see on screen is really what matters most. Absolutely. The product has to be the thing, you know, that holds the consumer, holds the customer. But even as I've gone around the conference today and I look at these at the refrigerators that have, you know, 10 to 12 different beverages all next to each other, it's very obvious some packaging is just not working. You know, it doesn't appeal. It doesn't it's it's not elegant. It's not it doesn't have the design factor that, you know, you feel like will sell on a shelf.

10:28You know, that's the thing. It's like there's limited shelf space, a lot of competition for that shelf space. And unless something does have that attractive aspect to it, it very well may be passed by. You sound like a grizzled veteran of the beverage industry already. I mean, I feel like you're primed. I'm trying, man. You know, I'm here today really to learn as much as I possibly can, hopefully make some connections. And it's fascinating to me. It's like I'm a student of life. And like I said, I do have investments in hospitality and fashion, entertainment. and I try to learn as much as I can about each and every one, so I'm making informed decisions.

11:06When can we see the sequel for The Way of the Gun? So I want to see you and Benicio on screen together again. I would love to. You know, it is something that we talk about. Chris McQuarrie, who wrote and directed The Way of the Gun, is now doing Mission Impossible and all these gigantic Tom Cruise movies, so he would have to take the time and find the time to make another. But the two protagonists, you and Benicio, who play those parts, I mean, they don't die at the end. No, they don't. No, they don't. I'm sure there's a future for them. It's definitely open-ended. And it would be interesting to see what those guys are up to at middle age, I think.

11:36They're probably healed from their wounds. I hope so, yeah. Ryan, it's been so amazing sitting down with you. Thank you so much for taking the time. Enjoy the rest of BevNet Live. I will. Let's stay in touch. I will. Thank you so much. Thank you very much.

11:51That 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 cratchy our technical director is joshua pratt and our video editor is ryan galang our social marketing manager is amanda smerlinski and our designer is amanda huang just a reminder if you like what you hear on taste radio please share the podcast with friends and colleagues and of course we would love it if you could review us on the apple podcast app or your listening platform of choice check us out on instagram our handle is bevnet taste radio as always for questions comments ideas for future podcasts please send us an email to ask at taste radio.com on behalf of the entire taste radio team thank you for listening and we'll talk to you next time