How NOT To Manage A Crisis. Functional Should Mean Clean, Right?

0:10Hello, dear 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 with my co-host for this episode, John Craven, Jackie Brugliera, and the sneezy Mike Schneider. I think I just swallowed a bug. Oh my god. I think I did, for sure. Yeah, we got a little bit of a bug problem. They're tiny bugs. They're gnats here in the office. Yeah, we're getting rid of them. They haven't attacked the studio until today, so... I think they're following Mike. Yeah. You know what? You're blaming me?

0:44Come on, I want to get to dig in on them. I was going to say some better hygiene might help us out a little, Mike. Come on. Jeez. That's all the numpty strikes I've been smoking. Can't deal with the bugs. The what? My new cigarette brand, Numpty Strikes. You don't know about that? No. Oh, yeah. It was, yeah, creative. I'm thinking about leaving Bevan to start my new You guys are really, really old school. Nobody's even going to make that reference. Lucky Strikes, numpty strikes. I mean, Jackie doesn't even know what lucky strikes are. Thank goodness. Thank goodness no one gets it. It's a very, very old school cigarette brand.

1:16They used to be, the tagline used to be, lucky strike means fine tobacco. Yeah. Remember that? I mean, this is such an innovative brand that I can light my mouth on fire without a cigarette and blow a smoke out. Oh, wow. That's what happens in the AI videos. I don't see people smoking cigarettes anymore. We're just, just like once in a great while. They're vaping now. Is that what it is? Yeah. Okay. It's more incognito. Am I going to offend all residents and citizens of Chicago if I say I wouldn't be surprised if there are more people who smoke cigarettes in Chicago than in Boston. Yes, that is offensive.

1:49Yeah, I would say so. I mean, well, I said it. All right, but anyway. It's an interesting segue. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make here is that we are heading to Chicago, taking the show on the road. A taste radio meetup is now being planned for the great windy city. August 14th is the day. That's a Thursday. We're going to be hosting it at a place called Host. Host Cocktails Event Hall in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago. This is an event space that I'm really excited about. So Host Cocktails is a maker of ultra-premium bottled cocktails. They have a gold fashion. They have a Mezcal Negroni.

2:27They have a bunch of other cocktails that are just phenomenal. And so Host has this brand new event space that we'll be hosting a Taste Radio meetup at. Attendees will get to sample. That's so meta. I love it. attendees will get to sample the cocktails and a whole bunch of other food and beverage that will be present at the meetup do we have a link yet yes we do it's taste radio.com slash chicago you know how to spell chicago c-h-i-c-a-g-o that is correct all right so stay tuned for that quite a bit of time in chicago i'm looking forward to chicago everyone is really peppy today what is going on is it the heat everyone's got the heat's gone everyone's brain gosh it's 99 degrees out The bugs have them on edge.

3:08I guess so. It's the extra protein. It's the Red Bulls we chug before each episode. Extra protein for inhaling all the bugs. If you are interested in being a part of the meetup, if you would like to participate as a sponsor, let us know. Just send me an email, rlatif at bevnet.com. We would love to highlight your brand, your company on our media assets. Invite you for a quick interview at the meetup. participate in the most exciting event that Chicago will have all year. So just, I'm making it. It's not hyperbole. This is, this is one that everyone's going to be at. So like Beyonce didn't go to Chicago this year.

3:49No, but Jay-Z was at our New York event. He was just in the back. Oh man. Yeah. We have more meetups coming out throughout the year as well. September 16th in San Diego, September 18th in San Francisco and October 2nd in London. So stay tuned for more details on those meetups coming up soon. All right, John, I actually missed this story yesterday, but I saw you posted on LinkedIn about it being one of the weirdest stories that you've seen in CPG. And it's about a brand called Better Brand. And they're best known or infamously known for their Better Bagel, which is a high protein, low carb bagel.

4:34Was is the cure. Was, yes. High-protein, low-carb bagel presented as a better future for food. And they've pretty much had all kinds of problems since the jump. One of the biggest problems was that, one, the bagels were shipped and delivered. Customers would open up the package and find out that the bagels were moldy and inedible, obviously. So that was like the baseline problem. Even when they weren't moldy, they weren't good. They weren't that great, unfortunately. Yeah. And it turns out that even though demand seemed to stay high or there seemed to be some interest in these products, despite all the bad reviews, they weren't able to pay their partners.

5:21So bag suppliers, lenders, ingredient suppliers, they had a pretty big problem making payments. And they are now being sued for not paying a$500 ,000 loan. This was reported by our very own Adrian DeLuca yesterday, July 23rd. As it's written in the story, Better Brand was sued by Oklahoma-based lender JSD Management and Consulting for breach of contract, as well as potential unjust enrichment of defaulting on payments for a$500 ,000 loan. apparently they've been chasing founder amy yang down trying to uh serve her with this lawsuit and she can't be found they can't find amy anywhere so i don't know what's going on here john do you know what's going on here well she did supposedly take some trips to europe too oh according to uh some of the coverage with the investor money no yikes i don't know it's it's really strange i think Like, you know, I said on LinkedIn, it was one of the weirdest things I've ever seen in CPG.

6:29I think Andrea Hernandez from Snackshot had a nice, it's the Theranos of CPG. It's just really odd. I mean, obviously there are, unfortunately, plenty of CPG companies that take investor money and don't work out or have problems of some unforeseen kind. But founder literally being like completely off the grid is that's a new one. Yeah. And to your point, the company had raised$10 million in venture funding to date, then laid off its entire staff in September. Its Shopify site was temporarily shut down in early October, sparking rumors that business was shutting down. But Amy did tell Nosh at that time there was no truth to the shutdown rumors.

7:12instead blaming the downstate and a group of former employees she claimed to conspire to steal money in inventory from the company this sounds like a bad lawn order doesn't it jackie i don't know it does it does it sounds yeah messy yes messy is a very good word for it yes and a lot of like drama and trying to scapegoat people and it just i mean from the moldy bagels on, it was just going downhill. Yeah, it really was. And the weirdest thing is that, I mean, look, not everyone is the most honest person in CPG. We know this, this is fair, but like the dishonesty and the mistrust and the misuse of resources and funds just seems to be at its absolute peak.

7:59Like I've never seen anything like this, where this lies upon lies, bad products, not delivering on anything to anyone. I mean, I don't know what's going on here. Well, I think also it's just really strange, again, that you have a founder who's completely just, I mean, it's not like she deleted social media profiles, but she's clearly just, I don't know, disconnected from everything. And that's kind of an interesting strategy in terms of dealing with this, because obviously it's completely one sided and looks, I mean, even if there were at this point, some sort of semi legitimate explanation for any of this, the optics of just crickets and ghosting everyone and everything is just bad.

8:44So I don't know. I'm kind of curious what happens. I mean, to be honest, chasing down, you know, a$500 ,000 bank line that hasn't been paid is probably not worth that much of a bank's time or money, you know? Well, according to the article, numerous businesses, including branding firms, ingredient suppliers, as I mentioned, 3PLs, and packaging suppliers have reached out to Nosh over the past eight months, stating that Better Brand and Yang owe them significant sums ranging from a few hundred thousand dollars to millions. So while this bank loan... Well, that's the company, not her personally. Right.

9:19But what I'm saying is like, yes, you know, maybe a bank can just write it off a$500 ,000 loan. I'm looking forward to the Netflix special. It's going to be the best. But I'm saying like there are other companies out there that can't lose that kind of money. Well, let me give you a little education here. Okay, here we go. Here we go. It's my MBA from John Craven. Here we go. A bank line from a bank possibly has a personal guarantee. Possibly. on the other hand they call it secured versus unsecured there you go there you go and generally speaking that's probably how that whole thing went down yes vendors on the other hands don't have that so company goes bankrupt you know there's no chasing down anything if the company doesn't have assets that are worth liquidating which i'm gonna guess at this point it just didn't look like there was anything significant there i mean again that's the part that's just unfortunate, normal stuff that happens in business and CPG company goes out of business.

10:15Vendors are left, you know, holding the bag, unfortunately. The skipping town on like a bank line, that's a little more strange. Yeah. Usually they just go to jail like Hannah Sorokin did. Well, I think, I think the lesson here is that look, pride does come before the fall, but you You gotta fall sometimes, you know? And I think just call it a day. I think Amy, if everything here is true, it certainly sounds like it is. I think the lesson for entrepreneurs is if things are going wrong, sometimes it's better to admit defeat before everything goes on. Yeah, 100%, because at this point, I don't know what Amy's means are, but you ever wanna get a job again or do anything, anyone Googles you, geez, I mean, that's gonna be not good.

11:01No. That's like completely wrecking your own, I don't know, I wouldn't even call it personal brand, but I'll call it personal brand for lack of some other way to like, you know. The company is better brands. Anyway. That's the weird part. What was it better then? Keeping social media up, like saying that these are rumors and that they're not going out of business. Like there's a lot of effort to like keep this company around for, you know, only for her to be dragged through the mud. There's probably more weird stuff we don't know about. Yeah. So I guess I will admit to being a part of the indirectly part of the hype machine because I interviewed Amy three years ago for an episode of Taste Radio.

11:38And maybe this was a red flag back then because she's knocked out the back door. During the interview, I couldn't help myself. During the interview, she talked about her roots in entrepreneurship, which and this is this is quoted in the interview. Her roots in entrepreneurship began with, quote, childhood loan sharking. So, yes, how about that? Okay. All right. I am not, I don't want to be called to the stand. It's just re-listen to the interview, folks. Interesting. Yes. Okay. Wow. I think we've had our say on Better Brand, and hopefully this all gets worked out. It probably won't. Great. We're face-to-face with this person.

12:18Can I ask you a question? Have you seen these new beverage alcohol products that are described as hard refreshers? Yeah. They're not hard seltzers. They're not beers. They're not cocktails. They're described as hard refreshers. They are non-carbonated, as far as I know. And they look like hydration beverages. Yeah, that Light Strike is going to get a 13-year-old drunk. Yeah, I mean, that one in particular, you know, that's a product of New Belgium. Total respect for them, but that is a confusing package. Yeah, just so the audience knows what we're talking about. The product I have in my hand is from a brand called Light Strike.

12:51And it definitely looks like a Gator. Right, a Gatorade-type product. On the front, there is a button that says contains alcohol 21+. 21 %? That would be great. Well, it's weird. In the middle of the button it says 21 +, and then around it says contains alcohol. Light Strike is written vertically. It describes itself as a hard refresher, 5 % alcohol by volume. Orange Mango, another key flavor for sports drink brands. This is a recipe for disaster here. Some kid's going to pick this up and not be able to read that it contains 21 % alcohol. Think it's a prime. Think their brother or sister found a new prime.

13:29This feels like recipe for like lawsuit to be more specific. You know, I think the brand is cool. I just think the overall sort of a trade dress, if you will, especially because the text that's this hard refresher, 5 % alcohol is, is vertical. And in a font that's, I would say slightly hard to read. yeah, it just, it looks like something that should be next to prime. They probably should have someone follow you around with that thing, just so they make sure the right person drinks. You know, we've talked a lot on this podcast about, for example, like the proper package for the right use occasion.

14:05And, you know, we've talked about that with like cannabis a bunch and like, you know, the weirdness of like showing up with a chocolate bar when, you know, a beverage that looks like other beverages kind of blends in and seems appropriate. And this to me kind of has that similar problem where, you know, showing up to occasions where people are consuming alcohol, this looks like an odd format for that. And it doesn't look like an odd format in terms of maybe discrete alcohol consumption, which, you know, forgetting about like kids, it seems like a product that someone might drink when they shouldn't be consuming alcohol.

14:42This feels like, you know, when we first saw Athletic and Bill Shufelt told us, I want to make a beer for when you're done running. And it looks like a beer. So you could have it at the finish line or at halftime or of a soccer game or something like that. And it is in similar packaging, although I think, you know, the opposite problem is in play here. If you drink an Athletic and you're expecting to get a buzz, you're not going to get one. So that's probably okay. Right. In this case. Did you say you're probably not going to get one? You're probably not going to get a bus. I would say so, yeah.

15:14You're probably not. Placebo can happen, right? Sure. But in this case, you don't want one. You're going to get one. That's the problem here. So the reason I bring this up is because our very own Zoe Licata, who's our colleague, who is a senior staff reporter for Brewbound, wrote a story that's titled, I Know a Hard Refresher When I See One. And the other product that I have in my hand is one that's called Happy Thursday, also described as a spiked refresher. This is a Molson Coors product. And the goal is to create something that's a balanced, bright, non-carbonated option that creates no bloating and burning for the consumer.

15:51Also, this one's in a can, so it's not in a bottle. But it looks like a soda slash energy drink. But they're really pointing out here that it's bubble-free. So there's a bubble-free call out here. That could be a cocktail, though, too. It could. But, I mean, look, I think obviously we spend all day, every day looking at beverages and CBG products. That, to me, when I first saw that, I was like thinking, ooh, this is like a mood product or some adaptogenic thing. And, you know, but still, I feel like I could be sold on this being a unique approach to alcohol. I think that one's easier to figure out.

16:24It's not that far away from what I have in my hand right here, which is the Santa Fe, which has some, you know, alcohol cues on it, too, with the big citrus on it. That's an Arizona product, the Santa Fe sparkling water product. Face sparkling water, real fruit juice, lemon citrus, obviously a Spindrift competitor. Tasty stuff, by the way, but still like you could mistake this for alcohol. I think in general, like beyond the whole mistaking it for, you know, oh, I thought this was non-alcoholic and it is actually alcohol. I think just the blurring of lines is interesting. I think like Gen Z is reaching for something that they would like to drink anyways, but just happens to have alcohol in it.

17:00For example, like Beatbox has crushed it with Gen Z and they're in a Tetra Pak and they look like something that might be juice, but it's an alcoholic product or they're drinking buzz balls again, which was something that no one drank. And now they're drinking that because it's approachable flavors, things that they know. It's cheap. Yeah. No, I mean, I think what Jackie said was kind of the last thing I was going to say, which is this ultimately is one of those things where it is kind of like, I don't know, it is like the Beatbox challenge of certainly alcohol in Tetra Pak containers was kind of not a thing, but now it is.

17:39Yeah, that is a fair point there. That Beatbox has done just a fantastic job of you look at their package and you know what you're going to get. And they're doing a great job with their brand and their brand has great brand equity now. And it's going to take a while for somebody to start to think that that could have alcohol in it. The bottle that you're holding right now, which looks like Prime and Moss Plus, could have alcohol. 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.

18:11Visit TASTERadio.com slash Insider to learn more. John Craven has some... Hot off the presses here, a... I was going to say a limited edition, but I guess it's kind of another limited edition liquid death product. this one being the deathberry inferno which has on the back a riff on the uh parental explicit lyrics oh i see okay with uh parental warning extremely spicy oh really so oh boy mike was calling uh bs on this so we're gonna let him go first

18:52what i said was is this gonna be like when jackie tried the pocky the pocky oh god i can smell i can smell the heat oh no i'm in trouble what kind of pepper is it like yeah that happened to me too the aroma is immediately gag inducing all right here we go all right he hasn't passed out yet so it's not that bad it's really tasty no it's like um john you like verner's right sure verner's is like that uh barrel aged ginger ale no barrel aged just pictures of barrels just pictures of barrels it has a lot of corn syrup barrel aged flavor but it always would make you sneeze when you you know the the bubbles are the spicy the spicy yeah i mean this is really good if you i mean this would be a better one to drink out of the can because we poured it in a little glass and you get your nose in there and you yeah i had to like just hold my breath and take a sip it's not it's not that spicy it's not that spicy it's it's actually pretty delightful it does remind me a bit of i mean like a take on verner's i don't know if i'd call it delightful to be honest why would you drink this i like it i think it's i think it's nice like could you drink a whole can this is the opposite of refreshing i mean you could but it's not refreshing actual berry flavors kind of mid as they would say it's definitely uh a gag yeah it's a gag yeah literally it's a gag literally i mean you can't i chose my words wisely right you can't smell this thing if you do you're gonna gag yeah i mean it's it's spicy you know it's got a sort of uh i don't know warming feeling as you drink it but it's not like give me a glass of water crazy hot sauce okay well i mean everything look at death does from a marketing standpoint is a bit of a gag i mean that partnership they did with whistle pig where yeah it's just you know whistle pig aged still waiting for my bottle by the way whiskey in what was it i'm sure it's at your house they age whiskey in uh in casks like literally like corpse casks as opposed to barrels and with someone in it oh my gosh this show has gone off the rails yeah all right no i I mean, look, from a gag PR marketing perspective, I like the idea of liquid death playing in the realm of spicy.

21:13That's a good idea. This one, I don't know, for first effort, it's not really Deathberry. So the fine folks at Fatboy, which is a maker of frozen novelty products, they have ice cream sandwiches, sandwich pops, etc., etc. It's not just a bunch of new products. I'm most interested in their churro sandwich, which is a cinnamon churro ice cream sandwich. It's new, and this is one of several new products that Fat Boys launched. This is a brand that's been around since 1925, so this is their 100-year anniversary. John just bit into their new mint cookie sandwich pop. This is definitely throwback stuff.

21:58If you want to go to an ice cream truck, you know, you're at a soccer game or a kid's soccer game, all of a sudden and you're like it drives you crazy and all the kids yes rush the ice cream truck yes it's just like that right jackie never heard one like that but well that's exactly how it sounds it drives you crazy and this is the kind of stuff that you find on the trucks in fact this actually might be a premium version of what you find the trucks i will say that you know there's a time and place for products like these these are these look amazing they look delicious when i'm deficient in blue and yellow food coloring yeah They're not better for you.

22:33Let's just put it out there for this churro sandwich They're not claiming to be better for you. They're called fat boy. Well, they do call out real ice cream as opposed to fake ice cream Yes, I do like that. Good to know. Yeah, I do want to eat this cinnamon churro cookie ice cream sandwich I'm not gonna do that right now, but just to call it a few other products that they created They have a birthday cake sandwich pop and they have a brownie sandwich I wonder Jackie if this is a and I'm not saying and this in any way other than the fact that we've had historical conversation or we've talked historically on this podcast about the brands of your youth.

23:07Did you eat this when you were a kid? Are you a fat boy girl? I'm not a fat boy girl. I was more of like, you know, like those strawberry shortcake? Yes, I love those. Those were my favorite. Those are so good. Those are amazing. Fat boy probably makes that. Or like the tacos, you know, like the ice cream tacos. Choco tacos. Choco tacos? Yeah. The strawberry shortcake. Oh my gosh, you really brought me to my youth there. Those were my favorites. it. So yeah, no Fat Boys for me. But Fat Boy also does make those really, really beat ice cream sandwiches with the really thin brown cookie thing on the top.

23:40Those were kind of like any port in a storm. If you needed to have ice cream, they were fine, but not good. No. Now, can we talk about these products that are seemingly presented as better for you? These are protein donuts from Legendary Fruit. Oh yeah, yummy. They come in two different varieties vanilla glaze and pink sprinkle there are two donuts per package 20 grams and zero grams of sugar per serving size we've seen a lot of protein donuts come to market some better than others the only thing i the problem i have with this is that i guess when you call something a functional product or you're you're indirectly calling it because it's a protein donut you would assume that the ingredients are higher quality than what i'm seeing in this well i would assume than that um i don't know i don't think higher quality necessarily equates with i don't know more function i guess it's more of a hope i would i would hope that you're getting higher quality ingredients out of functional products and this is clearly have you looked at the protein bar set lately yeah but maybe just because i've seen other protein donut brands out there and they have had better for you ingredients when i look at the ingredient list for these products it's it's a lot what how many proteins in it there's 20 grams per two donut serving i'm with you right i feel like when i think of functional also i don't always think of protein i think that's just like table stakes whereas like the function comes from maybe other things beyond protein first of all i really you know we've seen this brand before i like the brand it's very like visually captivating the way they've created packaging for sure i feel like this is going for the like you know low sugar you know five gram net carbs here you know it's kind of um i don't know again more mainstream this looks like something that is vying for that consumer who again just is looking at maybe the protein bar aisle and as we talked about with certain other bars uh in past episodes like they're just trying to make something that's i don't know effective at whatever function they're after now people that are reaching for donuts aren't necessarily reaching for oatmeal, but perhaps that's a better for you option.

25:57Oatmeal, that is. Purely Elizabeth, which has been making oatmeal for a while, they have a new protein line of instant oatmeals. They have three varieties, maple cinnamon, chocolate chip banana bread, and apple harvest crumble. Each serving contains 10 grams of protein. They're all made with organic oats, buckwheat, and quinoa. The ingredients are all what you would expect. They're pronounceable, no artificial flavors, colors, et cetera, et cetera. So let me get one of those.

26:30This is in my office. Anyone can go into my office anytime and grab anything they want. I do. That's where the good stuff is. This is what I'm talking about though. Like if you're going to present yourself as a high protein product, then it would stand to reason that you would have better for you ingredients. In this culture of, we want clean labels. we are vying against brands that are trying to do better for the world. I'm sorry, Legendary Foods. I just don't know. I just would encourage you to clean up your ingredient list. That's all I'll say. We can agree to disagree slightly on that one.

27:06But I think this is after that consumer that you were talking about for Legendary. And I don't know. I've never found a purely Elizabeth product that I don't enjoy. Definitely expecting. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, definitely expecting quality out of this one. I'm sure you'll let me try a packet or two. So half a packet, half a packet. Perfect. So I can only get the five grams of protein. So thanks. What's the sugar content and what's the sweetener? I feel like with instant oatmeal, that's always like the big challenge. It's just great questions. There are eight grams of sugar, seven grams of added sugar, which is 14 % of your recommended daily value.

27:45the sweetener is maple sugar and organic coconut sugar. Okay. Nice and clean. Yeah. Yeah. So well done once again, purely Elizabeth. All right. I think we covered everything. In case anyone was curious, the legendary donut tasted like a donut. There you go. I think that's what they're going for. They delivered on taste. Yeah. It was kind of like, it had like an Entenmann's quality to it, which I did not dislike at all. I liked it. Pretty good. Okay. well maybe i am maybe i'm just a hater don't be a hater i mean i know because i think i used to eat endermint's donuts i understand what you're saying but in this case the better for you part of this is the 20 grams of protein ray's like i love these fat boy churro sandwiches i never said that man legendary's gotta clean up their ass i did not say i will say i would like myself afterwards It's a packet of oatmeal.

28:41I'm just going to eat it. Bro, I'm just going to cook that oatmeal now. 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 Podcasts app or your listening platform of choice.

29:19Check us out on Instagram. Our handle is BevNetTasteRadio. As always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please send us an email to ask at tasteradio.com. On behalf of the entire Taste Radio team, thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time. Thank you.