How Can ChatGPT Help CPG? Plus, Is This The Best Revamp Of 2023?

0:10Hello and thanks for tuning into Taste Radio, the number one podcast for the food and beverage industry. I'm Ray Lateef, the editor and producer of Taste Radio. And I'm with my co-host for this episode, John Craven, Jackie Rugliera, and Mike Schneider. We're doing so much recording in these studios lately. Every time I come into my seat, let's call it my seat because I feel like this is a seat I've occupied for a long time. Someone's always messing with my microphone. It's always like six inches lower than it needs to be. But who is it in the office that's so much shorter than me? I think it could be anyone.

0:45Everyone sits there. and Melissa sits there. You think so? We have a bunch of tall people in the office. Sure. Maybe they just don't have good posture. Oh, that could be it. I'm working on my posture. You know when you get out of bed and you're like, oh, groggy, and you're like, ugh, you know, like leaning, and you're like, your back is basically like sticking out by a foot in the back. I'm trying to like sit up and be groggy. Yeah. That's why I'm always hunched over because it's always early for me. I'm still waking up. It is always early for Jackie. Those late nights at the Chove will do that to you, right?

1:15Oh, he's like falling asleep in her microphone. We haven't been to the Chove in a bit. So, so sad. The Chove is short for Anchovies, which is a phenomenal bar in Boston, more specifically in the South and neighborhood of Boston. If you haven't had an opportunity to check it out, you should. It is quite divey, but it is a heck of a time every time you go there. So I wonder if the Anchovies has embraced AI in the way we have here in the office. I don't think they have. Probably not. They still use like old school menus where they write out specials. I was kind of hoping with the advent of chat GPT and just general accessibility of AI that we would be able to be a little more efficient in the workplace.

1:57It's not that great yet. AI is 2023's version of NFTs. Oh, you think so? I don't know. It's like every loser on the internet selling some course to tell you how to use it. And people are using it, though. But people are using it to create, I guess, funny memes. And, you know, there was a Muppet AI generator like last week that came out. Well, I mean, I made Muppets of you and Stern and you and Melissa and our AV team. And I also made some of the Oathouse team. I keep sending them to them. Okay. Yeah, people are having fun with it. I think it is like the wild, wild west right now. So everyone's just, like we said, making memes.

2:38I know internally we just make fun of each other using AI and create these crazy different scenarios or recreate BevNet Live. We've been messing around with some fake product ideas too. Yeah. I had a good one. It was just called Nuke, N-U-K with an umlaut. Okay. And it was spring water obtained from the Arctic using a nuke. Oh, wow. Interesting. And the AI actually made like, it had a picture of a glacier with like a mushroom cloud coming out of it. Yeah. I don't think anyone would buy that. And then I made another one. It was a beef jerky company called Endangered. That's my favorite one. It had pictures of like a white tiger on the bag.

3:26Okay. It was a little weird. I think it can be used as a thought starter. You know, you would never think of that or come up with those products, but you could maybe reel it in and come up with something that's more reasonable. I mean, you can use it to chance out some snaps, as Aaron, our head of design would say. You know, I can. Chance it out. But we, the Hadouken was supposed to be an innovation. It was supposed to be you instead of the gong. Hadouken being the fireball from Street Fighter 2. Yes, of course. I think people know that. But it was supposed to be instead of the gong. You know, we're trying to figure out some new ways for you to tell someone time stuff.

3:59Going back to Jackie's point, which I thought was thoughtful and helpful to this conversation. I feel like you're right, though. I feel like people have used AI and ChatGPT to come up with ideas for package design or maybe a brand revamp. They're like, oh, I want to do this. Or I think our customers would appreciate this. Or somebody asked if we could put this on the front of our pack. And, you know, maybe that could be helpful. Yeah. You can also use it to kind of refine your ideas, too. I know, like in ChatGPT, you could ask, is this a good subject line? And it can tell you, yeah, this is, you know, not going to trigger spam filters.

4:32Or now Photoshop has generative fill, which you can change the background of an image really easily and use it in your process. So I think there's things that are coming out and different ways to use it as a tool. I don't think it's like quite there to just completely rely on it for things. You definitely need the human element or else you're going to get something wild. But yeah, I think it can be useful. But Jackie, what about when I use it to try to overcome my social awkwardness and I'm like, I ask it about tone in an email and it will say, oh, this is a very kind email. I'm like, I don't think so.

5:03You've done that? Yeah, sure. Oh, interesting. I also feel like if you're creating a press release, obviously you wouldn't want to go out with a press release, just the AI version of it, but it could probably create a pretty good press release about a new launch or a revamp or investment or something like that. And all you'd have to do is tweak it with the human eye. It can come up with the structure for sure. And it tells you, you know, it'll give you best practices because it's just like, you know, sucking them in from the web. Yeah. I also feel like just general copy about things. Like, have we tried it for, you know, our events and like talking about what we're doing?

5:33That's all it is. Just AI. Just all it is. Just AI. This is me leaning into my microphone with my eye. It just makes it easier because, you know, sometimes when you're just looking at a blank page, you don't know where to start or it's hard to get started. So it can often kind of kickstart that process too. You can also use it to just put a bunch of notes on a paper and say, make this into a product brief. And it will, it'll try to make it into something that's structured and you always have to change it unless you want to be fired. Unless you want to be fired. I mean, you can't submit something like that.

6:05Yeah, I know also some friends of mine are, you know, still in school getting their PhD and people are writing full papers with AI and they then have to go into another AI to be like, this is plagiarized. So I think it's like a whole nother level of, I don't know, it's just interesting. I'm just waiting for the AI app that I can put on my inbox to respond to all the AI messages I get. Oh, there you go. AI is going to be fighting AI, you know. Yeah, it already is. Well, I'm concerned about higher education of people trying to hand in PhD thesis papers. What are they called? What are they called?

6:45Thesis papers. Yes. Thesis papers. We'll call it that. Using AI. We'll call it that. It's a scary prospect for sure. All right. Moving on. Yeah. You know what's not a scary prospect? What's that? Working with a company like Tetra Pak. Reliable, trusted, sustainable. It's a packaging company. AI-free. Perhaps AI-free. It's a company that has been working with beverage companies and some food companies for decades. And I want to thank Tetra Pak because they are the presenting sponsor for this episode. They are the pioneering packaging solutions company that provides safe, innovative, and environmentally sound products that each day meet the needs of hundreds of millions of people around the world.

7:31Learn more at tetrapak.com, T-E-T-R-A-P-A-K.com. Do we have any brands that are using Tetra Pak in our new beverage showdown, I wonder? I can't recall. But I do want to congratulate the 12 semifinalists that are participating in our new beverage showdown at BevNet Live Winter 2023. three they include mixolishy ever brew company plant press fang adapt super water joy energy calexo sly nutcase magic cactus true and spade very excited to see what a word salad there you like that that was a lot yeah i kind of at one point didn't know where one product's name was ending and where it was starting well that's my rhythm there just put all those products in the centrifuge and try it out.

8:19Also want to congratulate the six finalists for Nosh's Pitch Slam. Nosh Live Winter 2023 is where they'll be presenting. Lentiful, Lexington Bakes, Mazza, Fair and Square, Zuita, and Confusion Snacks. That is a heck of a lineup. That is a great lineup. I am glad to not be a judge on that. That sounds like a good lunch. So many good things. Yeah. That's going to be a real tough one for the judges, but excited to see those brands up on stage. excited to see those entrepreneurs because all those entrepreneurs are really awesome folks. We've met a few of them on Elevator Talk. We've met a few of them at trade shows.

8:54We've definitely sampled all these products and my mouth is watering just looking at these logos here. Hopefully they'll have enough product for everyone to sample. Speaking of the events, I keep seeing more and more people sign up for BevNet Live, Nosh Live, and BrewBound Live. We have over a thousand people signed up for the events, which is really exciting. And those people include entrepreneurs, retailers, investors, consultants, people who are, I like to always say - Co-packers, ingredients makers. The gatekeepers of our industry and the gatekeepers are all coming to the critical mass of the food and beverage industry, BevNet Live, Nosh Live, and BrewBound Live.

9:38If you wanna sign up, and I don't know why you wouldn't, head to bevnet.com, nosh.com, or brewbound.com for full details. If you have any specific questions, let us know, and we can connect you with a member of our team who can answer those questions for you. John Craven, did you get to try the newest Dr. Pepper limited time offering? I'm sure you have a hot take on this thing. The spicy one? Yes, this one right here. Yeah, I tried that. Don't you follow me on Instagram, right? I'm kind of bummed that you didn't see that. Kind of like you on Slack. And like you, I sometimes follow like your stuff.

10:15You sometimes follow my stuff on Slack.

10:20So Dr. Pepper last week revealed the 2023 limited edition flavor or their 2023 limited edition flavor with Dr. Pepper Hot Take. Available exclusively to Pepper Perks members beginning on November 8th. I didn't realize there was a Pepper Perks membership. Oh, boy. for the hardcore dr pepper fan that's a fiery turn on the original 23 flavors according to the press release harnessing the bold flavors of spicy peppers and honoring the sport and all the hot takes that come with college football fandom wow wow that's uh that's a lot going on it's a great crossover there yeah uh you know spicy flavors have been slowly creeping their way into RTD beverages.

11:04I feel like we'd always seen them in beverage alcohol, or at least that's where we first started to see that incorporation of spicy flavors. And now slowly but surely they've been seeping into non-alch over the last few years. Yeah. I mean, spicy non-alch beverages have been tried for, I don't know, geez, there was this one way, way, way back in the day called skeletons was probably the first one i had in the 90s i had he-mans kind of doesn't uh spicy beverages kind of hadn't really stuck so they go away after a little while but maybe this time's better but uh yeah the hot take was i don't know it was all right spicy came in a box that looked kind of scary so i don't know i'd try it again i guess a little sweet we're going to continue this conversation but i want to welcome i want to welcome in colin our most dedicated and probably favorite employee of all time now who has walked in here with oh wow two plates we have a plate full of jalapeno poppers and a plate of fried pickle chips here there's colin he's gonna appear right come over say hello hello how we doing that's colin now on the mics of taste radio what what did you do what do you prepare here i prepared some fried pickles uh i believe they're gluten-free and some jalapeno poppers.

12:22Did you tax us yet? Did you have any? I did have a fried pickle upstairs. It was very good. Well, Colin, you are a Gentleman Scholar and apparently a top chef for creating these wonderful or cooking these wonderful products. They're from Feel Good Foods, always gluten-free. They have a new look. And these are two of their products. They're fried pickles and crispy jalapeno bites. Colin, once again, I'll give you a thousand dollars later on today. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yes. Sample man calling everyone. Sample man calling. Before we talk more about feel good foods, I want to wrap up this conversation about spicy beverages.

12:55You know, I actually wrote an article for BevNet magazine about spicy beverages about eight years ago. And I was actually, I just Googled it. And it's funny, actually, you started to see more than a few of them when people with people infusing things like cayenne, cinnamon and clove, ginger. Cayenne seemed to be the biggest one. We saw cayenne in a Hint Kick product. Remember Hint Kick? Joya, which was a brand of Better For You sodas. Sip, another one as well. Remember Harmless Harvest at a cinnamon and clove variety? But I got to tell you, looking at these products that I wrote about in my article, I don't think any of them are around anymore.

13:32The product specifically, not the brands. So I think, John, you're right about the fact that people have tried it over and over and over, but it doesn't seem to stick. Yeah. I don't know why. I mean, I think it is a pretty solid beverage flavor to use. So you mean spice? Spice. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Can we get back to pickles now? We can get back to pickles now. So once again, feel good foods. I have not been familiar with this brand. Maybe it's because this is a brand new package design and maybe I would know it from the old package design. Jackie, are you familiar? No, I don't think so. Yeah. Look it up.

14:05But I mean, I love the idea of better for you. like party snacks or bar snacks. Is this better for you? I gotta think so, right? It's gluten-free. I mean, it's seven pickles for 110 calories. So, you know, seven pickles is usually closer to zero calories. So I don't know how much better for you it is, but maybe better for you than a bar pickle for sure. All right. How about a jalapeno popper? Oh, so the jalapeno popper, it's four pieces. It's a serving size, 250 calories per serving. Total fat, 16 grams. Sodium, 550 milligrams, which is actually not bad for these kinds of products. What's the cheese?

14:42Cream cheese. Is it cream cheese? Yeah. It does have some gums, xanthan and or carob and or guar gum, just to be very specific about that. But it doesn't have any artificial flavors, colors or other ingredients. Yeah, it looks like they did go through a huge rebrand because I do recognize their old packaging. And that definitely pops way more than what they had in the past. It was more focused on like the actual, you know, mozzarella stick or the actual jalapeno popper. Yes. I recognize this brand from Whole Foods because they be chicken pot stickers. Remember this? Yes. Yes. I definitely remember their chicken pot stickers.

15:21Don't ever recall them having jalapeno poppers or pickle bites. Yeah. I love the new packaging. The poppers are great. Not too spicy. Did you try a popper? I did. Not too spicy. Not too spicy. The pickles are phenomenal. I would definitely eat those again. Yeah, I would definitely say this packaging trumps. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Ooh. Yeah, you would say so? Yes, Mike, do you agree? Especially like... Yeah, yeah, yeah. You need bright colors. Yes. The hierarchy is great. Everything's right down the center now where it was kind of scattered in the previous one. So you see feel-good foods first, and then you see the green fried pickles.

15:57on the jalapeno poppers, you see the rusty color of jalapeno bites, which I think is a proper, you know, that's a good enough color for jalapeno bites. Yeah. And in like the previous packaging, I think this even just shows that we may have not known the brand name because it didn't pop as much as now. It's just front and center. The thing that pops most is feel good and foods is under that. So the feel good logo is just, you know, that's the first thing you see and that's what they want. the two things for me are the old packaging almost looks like it's too natural like too natural focus it feels like it's going to not taste great and it's i don't know there's something about it that just you're going to ask yourself you know if i buy this am i going to enjoy it whereas the new packaging makes it really fun and approachable and it feels like they're going to deliver on the experience that you're expecting well you can see they made a bunch of choices with this one too because they tried to get everything front and center as big as possible on the old packaging.

16:57And now they've made some choices here to make the hero feel good. And then the food itself. And then you've got some other, you know, other things that are secondary once you're pulled in to see those two things. So you're like, you know, down in the corner now is no artificial flavors, colors or sweeteners, gluten-free on the left side, new look, top left. So you know that maybe you've had this brand before, always gluten-free, smaller there. So, I mean, just, they made some choices and I think they made some good choices. The last thing I'll say about it is that I would think that if this brand with its old packaging were in the freezer aisle, it would be easy to miss because it was white with a few splotches of purple color.

17:38Whereas the new package is bright, bright yellow. First color your eye sees. Yes. And it will definitely stand out in that freezer aisle, even from behind the door. So well done. Could be mistaken for an Eggo. The only thing I can think of. Don't be a hater. The only thing I can think of, that would be feedback. Like, hey, put it next to the Eggo waffles. Well, they won't be next to the waffles. It won't be. Yes. Well done, feel-good foods. Speaking of Eggos, did you see that new Eggo Pop-Tart that was on the Slack channel? That's on the random Slack channel? I want it. I thought there was Eggo Coffee Mate.

18:08No, I saw that. Eggo Coffee Mate? Yeah. There's Eggo everything today. I mean, why not? I mean, I wouldn't put Coffee Mate in my coffee to begin with, so. I would never say Lego my Eggo Coffee Mate. Fair enough. Fair enough. Jackie, you've got so many products in front of you. What do you got going on over there? I have lots of different products. So we're creeping up on Thanksgiving and Ouroboros has a green bean casserole. Oh, they brought that back. That's the return of that one. Have you tried it yet? I tried it and it's actually really good. I was skeptical, you know, like how do you make green bean casserole into a sparkling water?

18:46And it actually is really nice. It tastes like sage and it's really, really delicious. Yeah, I love that product. And it's weirdly tasty. Yeah, it's like your first little taste. You're like, huh, what is that? And then you just like keep going back. Yeah, they don't miss Ouroboros. Look, there's not enough people doing savory flavors, period. And Ouroboros nails it every time they do. They did remember threatening to make a taste radio flavor. You bring that up every time we talk about Ouroboros. Maybe that was their only miss. They just decided, oh, this just tastes too much. It's just a hint to Paul Vogue and his team.

19:19It's too much Mike joke. Yeah. And then I also have Tempo, which is a line of THC edibles, but these are savory. So these are Buffalo cheddar. They have like salt and pepper. They have a couple other flavors and it's five milligrams of THC and five milligrams of CBD per cracker. So it is nice to see that it has both THC and CBD in the edible, which isn't always the case. The only challenge for me is if it tastes good and it's something salty, I'm going going to want the whole box and the entire box has 100 milligrams of THC. And I definitely don't want to consume that much THC. You don't want to go full mic at the Rose Cafe mode.

19:59The other thing that's interesting about those, Jackie, is that they change up the dosage per skew. So be careful there as well. Yeah, it can be a little tricky. So definitely, especially with, I mean, most THC products, I feel like they haven't really been specific as far as we're only going to do two milligrams or we're only going to do one milligram. So every skew can be different, which is, you know, very tricky. I got to talk about this product that was sent to me recently. I thought you guzzled on the way over. No, I had some this weekend. It is called Love Yuzu Light. Now love is L-U-V, Yuzu is like, you've heard it been spelled Y-U-Z-U and light is L-I-T-E.

20:46It is a sparkling wine of Riesling infused with yuzu. And this is described as a one-of-a-kind collaboration between two of LA's hottest brands, California natural winemakers, Wonderwork, and Yuzu Co., an importer and producer of yuzu products from Japan. It is a low ABV natural wine infused with yuzu. The co-founder of Wonderwork, which again is a natural winemaker based in LA, his name is, I'm hoping I'm not butchering this, Isamu Kamide, or Isamu Kamide, who was previously the senior brand manager at HealthAid and Nestle. And his team reached out and said that Isamu is obsessed with taste radios.

21:27Listen to every episode. I can tell you love this product. You know how I can tell? Because most of it's gone. Because you put the fancy Vogue triangle cap on top there. Yeah. Well, this is helping to keep some of the carbonation in. I know, but you're like babying that product. I got to tell you. Yeah. So I had some of this this weekend. It was fantastic. And I share it with some friends of mine as well, and they loved it as well. It's only 8 % ABV. I feel like this is perhaps the next iteration, perhaps evolution of sort of lifestyle beverages that you can have for multiple occasions. So, you know, for people falling out of love with hard seltzer or maturing beyond hard seltzer, I feel like this type of product, this product in particular, Love Use You Light, is just for you.

22:11It's again, and you know, you might be thrown off at the beginning. if you are a wine consumer, if you're familiar with Riesling, buy that added lemon flavor, it might take a second to get used to, but then once you do, you start to love it and really, really crush it. I think you took the name of it as a command too, because clearly you love it. I do. It's an unfiltered, unfined and vegan friendly wine. Fantastic stuff. Before we hopped on the mics, we were doing Yo Mama jokes. And it's not because we were like, kind of ragging each other. In fifth grade again. Yes. Some of them were good. I like the one that John Craven did, but we're not going to repeat that just yet.

22:47Jeez. Oh my gosh. But there's a brand out there called Yo Mama's Foods. I think some folks might be familiar with it. They make better for you pasta sauces, salad dressings, and condiments using only ingredients that mom has in her kitchen. They launched in 2017 and they just announced the launch of a new line of Alfredo sauces that are coming three varieties, classic, spicy, and garlic. I am a fan. I think they should put a joke inside every cap. Well, I mean, I think that the interesting thing about this is that Yo Mamas has quietly made their way into a ton of retail stores. I feel like I can see this brand in a lot of places.

23:30They're actually in 22 ,000 retail stores nationwide. The founder is David Habib. and as he noted in the press release, Americans love Alfredo sauces and our culinary team has worked for months perfecting this all-natural recipe made from fresh cream, Parmesan cheese and butter just like mama would. I'm surprised he didn't say just like yo mama would. But anyway, excited for this new line of products and perhaps we can just pour it on the rest of these pickle bites and jalapeno poppers. John was asking if he could treat it as a beverage earlier. Why would you treat this as a beverage? I don't know.

24:04that jar kind of looks like a beverage jar almost. This does not look anything like a beverage jar. It looks like an olive jar, if anything. Because it's a slim, it's a slim jar. Someone definitely made a beverage in those jars. Yeah, and they are not worth it anymore. Tea company. Yeah, you don't want to, you don't want to put a beverage in an olive jar. Don't do that. No, we see enough salad jars. Yeah. Salad bottles. Salad dressing bottles. This is one of those things where it's like advice that is also common sense. So, yeah. Common sense is a myth, Ray. That doesn't even exist. TB continued.

24:36TBC. 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 Cratchy. 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. 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

25:32Thank you.