How She Got Walmart To Say 'Yes' In The Pitch Meeting

0:10Hello friends and thanks for tuning in to taste radio the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food or beverage. I'm Ray Lateef, the editor and producer of Taste Radio, and with my co-host for this episode, John Craven, Melissa Traverse, and Mike Schneider. This episode features a conversation with Katie Lefkowitz, the founder and CEO of Harkin's Sweets, a brand of better-for-you candy bars that are sold in the checkout aisle of thousands of Walmart stores just months after the brand's market debut. We are surrounded by dumplings and bao. Yeah. Where are these from? That's because Nadia Leo Spellman, who is the founder of Dumpling Daughter, stopped by, dropped these off for us.

0:55And I think would like to be on the podcast at some point, Ray. I would love to have her on the podcast. Not a bad idea, right? They're local. Not a bad idea. Local, legendary. Started off as a restaurant and now doing CPG. That was the sound of John Craven dipping into his dumpling with saucy dumpling. You've got sauce all over your plate. What kind of sauce is that? What kind of dumpling is that? All right. Well, pork dumpling. Okay. And the sauce you're using looks like a... How's pork and chive? This is a secret sauce. This is spicy, sweet soy. Chicken and cabbage. And I could use some of that sauce and a roasted pork bao.

1:31She also gave us veggie dumplings as well, but I did not have time to prepare everything. Okay. That's a good dumpling. There's a ginger soy as well. How are you doing over there, Melissa? Good. I just ate a piece of that dumpling and it was absolutely delicious. whenever we get to order from Dumpling Daughter for Tuesday team lunch. It's always a big, exciting Tuesday lunch. Do you get your steamed or do them pan fried? Do I have to choose? I guess pan fried if I had to choose, but I really just love a dumpling any old way. Well, yeah, you know what? It's not really choice paralysis because there's only two choices, so you can't really go wrong.

2:05Spicy sweet soy sauce, excellent. John has the ginger so over there. I think he's going to drink it. Ate the whole plate. Very nice. You know, we're not just unpaid spokespeople. We're customers, too. We are. It's true. We are. Do we have any Dumpling Daughter coming with us to VivNet Live? Well, you know, I mean, does Dumpling Daughter make a beverage? Can you turn these into a smoothie? No, but I'm saying, you know, the happy hours and so on. So the lunch hours, we could have some dumplings being passed around, no? I mean, we could, but we don't. That would be delicious. That would be delicious.

2:36Perhaps we can think about that for the winter. We can work on that. Yeah. But as we've talked about so many times in the last few weeks, BevNet Live Summer 2024 is right around the corner, June 12th and 13th at the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York City. There are over 550 people already registered for this incredible event, one that you cannot miss. If you are thinking about going, do not wait another second. Register now, BevNetLive.com. I'm excited to hear from Charlie New. Charlie New is the global category manager for refrigerated beverages at Whole Foods Market. We also have Max Crowley, who is the VP of merchandising for GoPuff.

3:21GoPuff Whole Foods. I feel like these are two retailers that you want to be in business with. Melissa, am I wrong? I mean, you used to work for Whole Foods, so you're probably a little biased, but I mean, come on. I mean, yeah, I got to say I'm pretty excited to hear from Whole Foods. But I mean, overall, the show is looking really exciting. I want to ask you guys, what's your favorite part of BevNet Live? And I'll start. I love being at registration on the first day and just like greeting people as they come in because everyone looks so excited and sometimes like a little nervous, which is, you know, the line between nervous and excited is a fine one.

3:58And then I also love when people are on their way out and just hearing about how much they enjoyed the event, especially for the folks who are coming for the first time. Those are kind of my two favorite pieces of BevNet Live. Just love hearing how much people enjoy it. I think it's awesome to see you at registration, just greeting everybody. You seem like really happy doing it. And that's awesome. It's just like our whole team is really happy to see everybody just coming up because we know what's going to happen over the next couple of days. You're going to learn a lot about the industry. You're going to find partners.

4:33You're going to get deals done. My favorite part though, I think is anointing the pen of judgment for judging the new beverage showdown. But like, it's just like a little bit more favorite than meeting people and sampling and just talking to everyone about their hopes and their dreams and what they're going to do next. We also, Melissa, did you know we have a panel that springboards off of your community call on angel investment. We've got three angel investors during beverage school who are going to talk about just the ins and outs of angel investment. That's going to be such a great segment.

5:10It was hugely popular when we did it on community call. And obviously it's something that so many brands are struggling with right now and trying to find a solution for. So that'll be incredibly helpful for so many people. We're hearing a lot of companies that are raising angel rounds right now. So certainly listen to the community call. Come to Bedmanet Live. Make sure you're there for beverage school. It doesn't really matter what level you are either. I mean, there's some great refreshers in there. You get to meet folks after, have a chat with them, ask them your hardest questions. Just get started the right way.

5:46Drink from that firehouse. And of course, the retail one-to-ones when you have an opportunity to sit down with a retail buyer, merchandiser, executive from a variety of retailers, as I mentioned, Whole Foods, GoPuff, The Goods Mart, Lowe's Foods. So if you are registered, you can apply to participate in the one-to-ones. Obviously, if you are a brand owner or a brand operator, why wouldn't you want to do so? There's nothing like having an opportunity to meet face-to-face. I've certainly been on the side of emailing the same buyer a number of times, and there's just nothing like having that time face to face.

6:24Absolutely. Once again, bevnetlive.com is the way to register. Hope to see you there. If you want to meet up, just send any of us an email, DMS on the Instagrams, because we want to hang out. We want to meet up. We want to chat. You'll see us there. Yeah, for sure. I mean, if you're a shy networker, for say, and you're like, oh, I don't know if I can go to BevNet Live because I'm a shy networker, we'll help you up that game. Yeah. We'll show you just how easy just to walk up to somebody, ask a question and next thing you know, you're in a great conversation. That's also one of my favorite things is sort of like matchmaking because we know all these fantastic people and we want them all to know each other.

7:01Although trying to find Ray is like trying to stalk like, I don't know, YouTube before they go into their concert, you know? I'm busy. I don't like that. I feel like untouchable once they get inside. They got goons. I know. I'm a little busy, but I always try to find people during the networking breaks, lunch hours and chatting with them in the taste studio. You're like the Bukayo Saka of BevNet. He's in the Pubmobile. I did skip over Melissa's question about favorite moments for BevNet Live. You know, handing over that trophy to the winner of the New Beverage Showdown is always a great moment.

7:36Yeah. I don't know. It's probably the biggest smile I have in my face during the event. So that's always nice. I won't ask John what his favorite moment is because every second of every day of Bebnet Live is his favorite moment. Just adrenaline rush from start to finish. Yeah. It's just like, you know, Bebnet Live is your heroin. Oh, wow, wow. Your light is your crystal mask. Got weird fast. No, I'll echo what you guys are trying to say outside of the heroin references. I enjoy meeting all of the entrepreneurs and everyone that's coming to the thing. It's just a great time to be able to chat with people and, you know, get to know different members of the community or reconnect.

8:23So, they're for it all. I know. We've got some different sorts of heroines on stage. I mean, you've got Sarah Nguyen's going to be there for you. Oh, heroin, heroin. Come on, man. That's what I was thinking. Not the same thing. You know what that's called? That's called a homophone. There you go. It is called a homophone. Well, we did have a fantastic entrepreneur on stage last year. One may call her heroin. It was Alison Ellsworth, who's one of the co-founders of a brand called Poppy. Everyone knows Poppy. Poppy, the better for you soda that is positioned as a prebiotic soda. That positioning has gotten the company in a bit of trouble.

9:03As reported on BevNet, a class action lawsuit filed this week is taking aim at one of the central claims behind poppy's prodigious rise, its purported gut health benefits. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and alleges that the two grams of prebiotic fiber in a single 12-ounce can of poppy is too low to have a meaningful impact on gut health. Rendering that positioning as a probiotic soda as null and void, John Craven. we've seen this story before. How does it end? Well, okay. First, let's talk about how it begins. Yeah. I think that's actually pretty useful for pretty much every CPG company out there, which is, you know, first and foremost, I think there's this general sense of like, you know, you start doing something and like, no one does anything, then you're like in the clear.

9:56So, you know, a lot of companies, I think when they start out, you know, their reason for being and what they, you know, promote as the benefits of their, their product are kind of under the radar because no one's really paying attention. And, you know, the folks who file class action lawsuits are after money. So when you have no money, they're not really worried about you, generally speaking. So I think, you know, it's just one of those things where, you know, a lot of times I think companies that end up in this spot who've had success are just doing what they've been doing for a long time. And all of a sudden someone has an issue with it.

10:31And again, it's just, the target isn't big enough. Just, you know, you got to remember that. I think the second thing is that, and this will segue to how it finishes, is, you know, what a lot of times is the foot in the door for a CPG company, like Poppy, its only reason for existing in the beginning was gut health, right? Become sort of irrelevant in the massive success and ultimate outcome that this brand probably will have. And I think as we've seen and talked about, you know, starting with when they did this in Canada with no mention of gut health on the product because they couldn't, it seems that Poppy's kind of at a crossroads anyway, where that is going to slowly fade away anyway.

11:15And I think, you know, at Beverage Forum in LA back at the end of April, Rojan Oza, who's, you know, their key sort of, or the face of their investors, I guess you'd say, talked about how poppy pivoted from gut health to just selling fun that funds a bigger opportunity and i think how this ends is probably that like any class action lawsuit in this situation there's a settlement and this just gets you know put in a drawer and they move on i think it also to me is another sign that uh i think with some of these class action lawsuits as we've seen in the past, they often strike when the company seems to be sort of in play, right?

12:00Because of course, Coke's not going to write this big check when there's a class action out there. And to be honest, this thing getting settled probably at least gives Coke, you know, some peace of mind that the class action is not going to be against them once they buy this brand. So, you know, it probably ends up with some sort of settlement. I mean, sometimes companies fight these and take a lot of time and money, but I'm not really sure that Poppy wants to take a lot of time, if you know what I mean. You mentioned Coke a few times in that. You know something we don't? Just speculating. Okay.

12:35Just speculation. All right. Seen a few things. When these things happen, it's a sign that you're doing something right because people are noticing and now they want a piece of it. This is a way for them, as John was saying before, for them to get a piece of it through a class action lawsuit. Poppy doesn't need gut health, as John was also alluding. I mean, it's a fun brand. It's better for you. It tastes good. People love it. They don't need that benefit to sell Poppy. It's sort of similar to buy. They didn't need the coffee fruit benefit to sell buy. They also didn't need the five. Absolutely.

13:10I think that people drink Poppy because it tastes good. And it's a cool, fun brand that relates to you and is more approachable than certain other legacy brands in the eyes of that, you know, demographic that they're after. And if they get to meet Allison, you get to meet one of the kindest, most supportive founders there is. Copy me, copy me, do what I'm doing. You know, she's great. Heroin. She gives great advice. I mean, there's just, yeah, heroin. There's so many good things about Poppy. They'll survive this. No problem. Obviously survive. Yeah, they'll survive this. Yeah, well, they are being sued.

13:47As I mentioned, aggregate claims in the suit amount to more than$5 million. So for Poppy... That's a rounding error in a mega deal, by the way. It seems like a rounding error. If there were a mega deal to happen, John Craven seems to think that there's one right around the corner. I don't know. They'll spend more on the celebratory steak dinner. Okay. That's terrible. Oh, my goodness. But probably true. Oh, my goodness. No. I don't know. Okay. I mean, how do you think Rojanoza likes to party? Guy had 50 cent at his wedding. that's that's impressive i mean it was an investor and how come you weren't invited to that thing i was there ray no i was not there you were you were in marrakesh uh no no no never been the thing is rohan for all his pomp and circumstance he does still use snail mail to mail invitations john's got lost ah yes it's totally it's pretty bummer pretty rotten right now a lot of people are experiencing issues.

14:41Well, this is an odd tangent. This lawsuit reminds me of a conversation I had with Justin Procknow, who is a well-known regulatory and patent attorney in CPG, and talked about how there are lawyers out there, class action attorneys, who will go into a boardroom with a whole bunch of products that they bought at any grocery store in the U.S. and intentionally look for things that they can sue these companies over. And it sucks. It's one of the most challenging parts of being a brand founder and entrepreneur, but it'll happen. Lawyers are looking for opportunistic moments like that. On the other hand, it is, you know, the whole notion of consumer protection, like there are merits to that right i don't know if there's any merits to these guys though no i mean are you saying they're ambulance chasers right to some of what we're trying to do with that you know like companies shouldn't be able to make outrageous claims but i think there's a very broad sort of gray area of what you know these claims are and what they're intended to mean and again i think you know in the case of a lot of CPG products like my guess if you looked at ten like really emerging upstart brands like probably half of them have some sort of potential you know claim or language issue you know on it so I think it's just like one of those things that founders should be conscious of as they get bigger even the things that like you maybe have gotten comfortable sort of having as part of your brand's DNA to get it started and you know we saw that a lot like kombucha kind of had that problem too.

16:29There was a lot of, you know, gut health type stuff, you know, health aid ended up in one of these things. Just last week in our Slack community, we hosted Shelly of Garglaw and she posted the top five labeling claim issues that brands typically run up against. Definitely check that out if you haven't slacked up bevnet.com. Yeah, no, I mean, I think that's exactly the type of thing that it never hurts for brands to just take a look in the mirror at that stuff. It also helps when your ingredients have clinical backing. There is some sort of actual proven benefit to a particular ingredient or a functional claim that you're making, i.e.

17:14what you can gain if you include or incorporate a Muse into your food or beverage. Amuse is the presenting sponsor of this episode of Taste Radio. Now more than ever, consumers looking for ways to boost their immune systems and Amuse gives them that edge. Amuse is a dietary and food ingredient clinically shown to stimulate immune function at the cellular level. Incorporate Amuse into your innovation strategy and help your consumers optimize their health throughout the year. Learn more at AmuseHealth.com. That's I-M-M-U-S-E health.com. Ray? Yes? Twirl milk tea. You like Twirl, right? Of course.

17:55Twirl's a great brand. We know Pauline Ng and Olivia Chen are the great founders of Twirl, and they've got a new product, a popping boba. Oh, my gosh. Lychee popping boba, strawberry popping boba, and honey popping boba. I can make your own bubble tea. This isn't the Starbucks boba, is it? This is not Starbucks boba. What is Starbucks called? The summer refresher thing? No, what's it called? The blue thing? Yeah. The blue drink. Starbucks has caused a bit of controversy. What's new? This is the real deal, Ray. I can't wait to put this in some tea. Is that what you put it in? Yeah, you put it in tea or you can put it in a yogurt smoothie.

18:34Yeah, you make your own milk tea. Can I get a look? Yeah, you sure can. Mike, is it a kit? What do they give you? They give you a box and in the box are ready to eat pouches. So you just, you open the pouch and just toss it in your beverage. Yeah. Nice. and then you just get pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. This box kind of reminds me of a baking soda box for some reason. It does look a little like a baking soda box, but you know what? When you open it, you're going to be surprised to find popping boba. Can I just eat the boba? I mean, the boba is a good part of boba. Yeah, you can. Of course you can just eat the boba.

19:04Why not? You going to go for it? No, it seems like a bad idea. I mean, I want to, but... I'm excited to try this because you can put it pretty much in anything. You can put it in a drink or dessert, as the box says. Ready to eat. No cooking required, which makes life even easier when you're trying to have a boba beverage. Yeah. Pop it into a fruit bowl, put it on top of, you know, it looks like there's some cupcake toppings here. That's kind of cool. Plant-based, dye-free and gluten-free. Yeah, they're clear. Yeah. Better for you boba from Twirl. Funny popping boba. I mean, their milk tea is so good, but it's ridiculously hard as everybody knows at this point to put boba into a can and have it just, you know, survive.

19:45and then also to drink it out of a can too. Because you need to have the straw. So, yeah. I mean, if you've got the tea, you've got the straw, now you have the boba. And let's be clear, these are popping boba and not popping pearls. Starbucks. Does the boba explode? Take Pop Rocks. Like, what's the popping for? Seriously? It's got a pop in your mouth. It pops in your mouth and it does kind of explode, yes. It says right there on the side, what is popping boba? You'll get to try it. It's bursting boba. I need to try popping boba. Don't worry. My kids would love that. We'll try this out for lunch.

20:18Here, so everyone can completely understand what we're talking about here. It says it on the side of the package here. What is popping boba or bursting boba? Small balls filled with fruit juice that pop when bitten into. Don't. The outer layer made with seaweed extract. The outer layer is made with seaweed extract, 100 % vegan. Yes, you can elevate any soda, juice, iced tea, milk, tea, or cocktail. Bonus, if you can't finish the whole pouch, store in a fridge in a sealed container for up to two weeks. I mean. How about that? They've had boba before. Their boba's phenomenal. This is just like, I think this is new SKUs and now it's popping.

20:52There you go. It's a really good idea. Next level boba. Next level boba, yeah. Yeah. And I would have prepared it, but it just came in like 10 minutes ago. So I want you to just get it out of the show. Disappointed, Mike. I don't think so. I think you... We'll Instagram. We'll just Instagram. Don't worry. We're going to grab it. That'll happen. From pop to hop. What do you got there, Melissa? Ooh, Ray, nice transition. I know. That was pretty, that was smooth. I've got Fieldwork Brewing's hop water right here. I tried this last night. It's brewed with mosaic and Nelson hops. I thought it was tasty.

21:23It was lighter than other hop waters that I've had. So if that's what you're looking for, it's, you know, a bit on the lighter and more refreshing side. And I was curious because hops sort of have that, they have a flavor that makes me wonder if they're good for you. So I, you know, checked it out online and hops have been attributed with health benefits that include anti-inflammatory benefits, antimicrobial, digestive. But I don't know. Have you seen any hop water brands touting the health benefits? And, you know, we just finished talking about labeling claims. Maybe that's sticky territory. But yeah, I haven't seen that.

22:01No, I haven't either. But I would prefer my hop water to have full Nelson hops, not just Nelson hops. Because wait, what? You know, just gets you right around the neck, you know, just lock you in. They could just, I just don't feel the intensity. What is this? A 1984 wrestling reference you got going here? Sure. I'm not a half Nelson kind of person, full Nelson all the way. You want your hop water to put you in a headlock. Yeah. I can understand. I'm not a Ryan Gosling guy either. No, nobody. I mean, if anyone, if anyone, if anyone gets that reference, and by the way, I am Ryan Gosling. But if anyone gets that reference, email me, I'll send you a t-shirt.

22:43All right, let's get to our featured interview for this episode. As I mentioned at the top of the show, Katie Lefkowitz is the founder and CEO of Harkin Sweets, an upstart brand of plant-based, better-for-you candy bars. Prior to launching Harkin, Katie was the chief operating officer of Caulipower, helping the cauliflower-centric brand generate$100 million in sales annually within four years of its launch. In 2022, she set her sights on the confectionery space with the goal of creating a brand that rivaled legacy players like Snickers in terms of taste and texture, but with significantly less calories and sugar and was enhanced with functional ingredients.

23:26Harkin was the result. The brand debuted earlier this year and comes in three varieties, the crunchy one, the gooey one, and the nutty one. Harkin has already landed placement in the checkout aisles of one of the biggest retailers in the world, Walmart. Last month, Walmart added Harkin candy bars to 3 ,500 of its locations across the U.S. In this interview, I spoke with Katie about how a personal crisis led her to create Harkin, how she drew upon her professional experience to develop the candy bars, and how she secured and prepared for a pitch meeting with Walmart. She also explains why the category buyers said yes almost immediately, balancing a healthy margin with a reasonable everyday price, and how the company is supporting sales growth at Walmart.

24:16Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now I'm honored to be sitting down with Katie Lefkowitz, who is the founder and CEO of one of my favorite food brands, Harkin Sweets. Katie, great to see you. Thank you so much for having me. Great to see you too. I think I mentioned this on elevator talk when you appeared on the show a few weeks back. I should be more objective when it comes to saying what my favorite products are, but Harkin makes just this phenomenal candy bar that I've always dreamed of having and seeing one day. And here it is in my hand. This is the Crunchy One variety. Loyal listeners of the show know that I'm a fiend for Snickers bars.

24:57And And man, this is a Snickers bar in better for you form. So thank you so much for creating this. Thank you for enjoying it. That is all I ever want in life. You have a pretty amazing background in this industry in that you were the chief operating officer for Kali Power, which has been a rocket ship for so many years. So you have the experience in food, you have the experience working for an entrepreneurial brand, but where did this desire come from to create a Better For You candy bar? I mean, where do you start? Really, I created Harkin as a fellow lifelong knickers obsessive who had to give up the stuff after a diagnosis, unfortunately related to colon cancer.

25:46So as you can imagine, this really turned my life upside down and put gut health at the forefront. It was at that time I really dug in to start understanding the concept of food is medicine and all of the products you can have to really help prevent that terrible outcome. And it was at that point where I really switched my career, which at the time is actually in the biopharmaceutical space. I was focused on launching different drugs aimed at breeding chronic illness. And I just realized that so much of these illnesses can actually be prevented through changes to your diet. So that's really the overall picture of how I went from this base in biopharma into the food world and how I got to making Harkin Here Today.

26:46But in the interim, which you mentioned, is really my role that I played with Kali Power. So I joined there very early days. We were just getting into some national distribution. And in my role there, kind of as the first chief operating officer of the brand, we were able to go gangbusters, as you said. I mean, we grew from zero to over 100 million in four of the craziest years of my life, at least at the time. And I really think it's a testament to what us little guys can do in these traditional comfort food categories that haven't seen that revitalization. When I see Harkin, I see a brand that is similar in that people have been asking for lower sugar, better ingredients, real chocolate candy bars for a long time, but just couldn't get them.

27:46And the process of probably creating such a bar when you originally thought of this concept must have been pretty challenging at the outset. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that is one piece of it where my experience on the operation side of the business at Kali Power really came in handy. Just being able to navigate the wild west of the co-packer environment out there. I mean, I can't even tell you how many folks said no, said it wouldn't work. You know, I am kind of a science engineer at heart and I'm a big believer in making stuff happen, which is easier said than done in a lot of ways, especially as it relates to manufacturing.