How To Prepare For Scale… And Imposter Syndrome

0:10Hello friends and thanks for tuning in to Taste Radio, the number one podcast for the food and beverage industry. I'm Ray Lateef, the editor and producer of Taste Radio, and with my co-host for this episode, John Craven, Jackie Brugliera, and Mike Schneider. In this episode, we feature the third edition of Special Ops with Andrew Gard, in which the operations expert offers guidance on timely issues affecting food and beverage entrepreneurs. Get access to limited swag and exclusive content by becoming a Taste Radio VIP. it's easy for you to join that group of very important people just head to taste radio.com slash vip and take one minute to sign up that's the easiest url you will ever ever hear right it's like taste radio very easy words.com everyone knows.com really slash vip i mean i don't know bevnet.com is pretty damn simple or nosh.com i don't know brewbound.com they're all very simple That's true.

1:08You lost me at the slash. Then it got complicated. Jackie looks like you popped his balloon. Wait, what? Sorry, Ray. Is BevNet dated, though? Dated? What are you talking about? What? There we go. The name. Timeless. Timeless. Get it together, Ray. Original logo with the lightning bolt. It's right there. Yeah, I love it. It's in the corner. Right over there, yeah. I think we talked about this once in the podcast, but the original name of the company or original name of the site was TheBevNet. That's right. Yeah. Do you have a reason for why you called it TheBevNet? Because I couldn't get BevNet.com.

1:43No, really? Yeah. You bought BevNet.com? You bought the URL? Well, back then, domain registrations just lapsed, and then you could get it. Oh, you're one of those sneaky dudes, and you're just like, I'm going to wait, wait, wait, and then you woke up and like, boom, 3 a.m. in the morning, like, I got this. I don't think I even had to wake up. The company, well, it was like some sort of ISP, thing in Virginia and they switched to Bev.net, I believe. That's why you couldn't get Bev.net. Should we look up Bev.net? Yeah, does that still exist? Watch out. I believe it was the Blacksburg Electronic Village is what it was called.

2:20It's coming back to me. Unfortunately, it says this site can't be reached. Check if there's a typo in Bev.net. They probably sold dial-up or something. How would there be a typo in Bev.net? That's the six-character URL. Whatever. Anywho, great to see everyone john welcome back you were in vermont last week oh yeah i was yeah melissa reverse uh filmed your seat admirably yeah it's good yeah you enjoy vermont uh it was quick oh i did have lunch with the folks from plank nice do they live in vermont they do max did not know that yeah their headquarters is in burlington vermont how about that chill dudes those are some plinking good dudes the winners of bevnet live summer 2022 to New Beverage Showdown 23 was Plank.

3:06Be interesting to follow up with those guys and see how they're doing. It'd be Planktastic. Yeah, yeah. But excited for the New Beverage Showdown, as we've talked about many times on this show. Also excited to announce new speakers for BevNet Live, including some pretty outstanding members from a relatively important retailer. Jackie, which retailer is that? It is Sprouts. That's a very important retailer. Yes, D-I-R. Sprouts will be taking the stage at BevNet Live. They will be talking about how they're seeking innovative beverage brands, what goes into that process, what they're looking for.

3:42And they're going to be taking some meetings and more information about that can be found at BevNetLive.com. So you're saying that people who attend BevNet Live will have the opportunity to meet folks from Sprouts? They'll have the opportunity to meet if they qualify, yes. How does that work? Sprouts has a qualification process, but we're going to give you a way to express interest and Sprouts will let you know. Okay, fair enough. Yeah. I feel like if you dress well, that's why I always dress well to these things. You can usually talk your way into a meeting, even if you don't necessarily qualify.

4:16So hint folks, dress well. It doesn't mean like a tie per se, maybe a bow tie would. I think Mike's got the model outfit going right now. I don't want to talk about Mike's outfit right now. I just, those are - Taste radio. Those shorts are a little too short. I think, Mike, did you just get off the pitch for playing for Arsenal? Yeah, that's exactly it. I'm pretty sure you were on the field because they sucked this weekend. Sorry, I just wanted to throw that in there. They sure did. They sure did. It was a disappointing weekend. I'm so proud of them, though. I'm proud slash disappointed in the Arsenal's.

4:48You just got to celebrate the loss sometimes. I love how loyal you are. The 3-0 loss, right? So loyal. That's a bad loss, and that pretty much knocked Arsenal out of the title contention. They had been the table leaders for so long, but no longer. Thanks, Ray. Thanks for reminding me of that. It's been fun looking down at Man U for the entire season. So you guys talking about this for so long has motivated me to pay attention. And now I'm a Man City fan because you guys are both losers. Huge losers. This is good. This is, you know, because a year ago, we would have been talking. Plastic fan. Oh, yeah.

5:21I'm just picking whoever's at the top. That's why. Yeah, that's it. A year ago. But I've always loved Man City. This is most Man City fans, by the way. We just go way back. Been watching them so long, like maybe two weeks ago. This is good because a year ago, John would have picked up a bottle. Smashed it over my own head to make it stop. Exactly. I'm wearing the yellow shorts because I brought some of the new Oathouse granola butter banana bread flavor. No spoon, though. Oh, in honor of bananas. In honor of bananas, I'm wearing the banana shorts. That was a stretch. Thanks for connecting the dots.

5:57Yeah, I didn't bring spoons. We can try it after the show, but I've had it. And yeah, it's OMB. This is like the Matrix. There is no spoon. Nobody? Yes. I've seen that movie many times, Ray. No, I thought you were holding that because it made you happy, given that Arsenal is not going to win the Premier League. But also because there's big news associated with Oathouse, they recently got into Target. I believe it's Target stores across the country. Yes. That's true. Yeah. They posted an awesome Instagram reel featuring their introduction to Target. It was really fun. They did. And then I was watching, you know, Ali's Instagrams and she had, I mean, they did the most incredible photo shoot.

6:43She bought a bunch of red and white outfits and just go to Ali.BONAR and then also Oathouse's page and you can see them. But she was talking about how she thought it was going to be one of the best days of her life. And then she got all excited about it. And then it was just, oh my gosh, overwhelming and not quite the day she was hoping it would be. And I think that happens to a lot of founders out there. I don't think it's just her. So it was really cool to see her sharing that. It's just like, you know, a lot goes on in the food business and you see a lot of the, you know, the good side of people getting into stores or launching new products.

7:20and a lot of the hard work, you know, happens behind the scenes and you don't always see that. It's a lot of lows with those highs. It's like the notorious B.I.G. once said, mo' money, mo' problems, right? That's a great song. You like that? I love it. I'm in touch with today's youth. I'm hip. I'm with it. Okay, yeah. No, in all seriousness, it is interesting to see and read Allie's Instagram posts and I can just read it here. Sometimes when I'm in the facility, I have this weird out-of-body moment when I look around and wonder, how did I get here? I live in Pennsylvania. I employ 26 people. I make spreadable granola for a living.

7:56Can someone tell me what the hell is going on and who put me in charge? I know she was the avocado queen. She was the avo queen. And now she is the granola butter queen. Well, I think what she's talking about is imposter syndrome. And I hear this relatively often from entrepreneurs, especially ones that are seeing some success with their brands because you have achieved such things. John Craven, you've talked about this on Twitter, right? Yes. Yes. Many times. Typical, normal feeling for entrepreneurs. Yeah. And it's one of those things where it's hard to embrace the good because you just see the challenges and hurdles coming in front of you as well.

8:34She knows how the granola butter is made and she knows all of the, you know, she knows all of the ins and outs of it and the challenges that they face to getting into Target. And then the fact that, okay, it's going to go into Target. People are going to buy it and, you know, potentially buy this granola butter. sell out and they have to make more and more and more and more. So what if it explodes? They're a small company with their own production facility. So there's a lot to think about there. And that is the reality. Yeah. And as you grow, there's just more challenges. There's more people you have to answer to.

9:04There's higher expectations. And I think when you found a company, you are doing it for yourself. It's a passion project. You're trying to solve a problem. And then now Now you have all these consumers asking for your product and you have all these retailers expecting something. So it just adds all of that new pressure. Sending lots of love to you, Ali, and to Eric. It always helps though, when you are scaling and trying to figure out the next steps for your business and brand to have great partners, especially supplier partners, including people like the team at AFS, Applied Food Sciences, which is the presenting sponsor for this episode of Taste Radio, AFS is the leader in innovation for functional organic ingredients in the natural products industry.

9:51And it's built on the belief that quality is transparent from seed to label through organic farming, ethical sourcing and sustainability. Learn more at AppliedFoods.com. I love how you just injected that into the middle of the conversation. I'm what they call a sultan of segues. I think it was because we were talking about the notorious B-I-G. So you went AFS. Oh, OK. I like that. They're not Notorious, though. Notorious AFS? Notorious. High quality. Notorious NAFS. You know what? I think that the Zaps would actually appreciate that. Notorious AFS. We should bring that up to them. Maybe they'll change the name of the company.

10:29Totally. Let's chat them up. Yeah, well, we'll see him at BevNet Live in New York City. Hope to see you all there as well. You know who we saw a few years back in New York City? I believe it was at one of our summer events was the founder of a brand called Toast, T-O-S-T. Or is it Toast? It's a maker of sparkling beverages that come in these 750 milliliter bottles and is intended to be an alternative to sparkling wine and adjacent beverages, a sort of celebratory beverage, as it were. I recall seeing people this past New Year's drinking with toast as opposed to a sparkling wine or champagne. And at the time that they launched, which was in 2017, I have to be honest, I didn't see a huge runway for this brand.

11:16It just felt like the market opportunity was too small. I felt like it was too niche. I remember us scratching our heads when it came out. Well, I think it's, you know, a prime example of a product were when it launched, the questions were like, where are you going to sell this? Like nobody buys this. And, you know, they've done a really great job of just building their own path. And I think it also kind of shows maybe they knew something that we didn't in hindsight, but the trends have sort of evolved to a place where like that kind of makes total sense now. Yeah. So that never happens. Liquid death.

11:53I think it's the, I think it's the own lot that makes it. Well, they were clearly ahead of the trend and they've done well and they've found quite a bit of traction on the market to the point where Constellation Brands, the wine and spirits conglomerate, acquired a minority stake in toast. and this was announced last week on BevNet.com. Malika Montero, who has been at BrewBound Live, she's the executive vice president and chief growth strategy and digital officer at Constellation Brands, praised the investment as allowing Constellation to continue to optimize our higher-end portfolio by providing an alcohol-free beverage with a complex flavor profile for consumers that complements their lifestyle across a variety of occasions.

12:38And I think what she's trying to say in all that is this gives people a choice. This gives people flexibility in being able to drink what they want when they want and not have to settle for something. This is a premium product. I often see it stocked at Whole Foods, and I wouldn't be surprised if we start to see it stocked in many other retailers as well. Yeah. And I think it's interesting just to see what Constellation Brands is doing in that space too. I know that they now have like non-Elk Corona. They also have an investment in hop water. So they're trying to get into that space and they're understanding that people are still buying alcohol, but they want an alternative when they're also buying alcohol to be a little bit healthier to drink less.

13:22Absolutely. And you know, this is as the founder and CEO, Brooks Addington described toast is an affordable luxury. I feel like, you know, this is probably less than$10. I feel like it's even closer to seven or eight, but it looks premium. a beautiful bottle. You know, you bring this to a party, you know, people are going to reach for it and feel like they're not missing out on that social occasion. So once again, I have to admit I was wrong about this brand, but I'm really happy about the fact that I was wrong. Switching to the alcoholic side of things. Did you hear? Well, of course, John Cravenhard, because he's the one who slacked it, that Neil Patrick Harris, Mr.

14:02Doogie Howser himself, he's going to hate me for saying that, is launching a new espresso martini, an RTD espresso martini. This is not surprising, right? I mean, what celebrity isn't getting involved? Yeah, more and more stuff. Yeah. At least it's not a tequila. Well, yeah, but I mean, don't you think like there's also kind of this glut of espresso martini brands out there nowadays? Yeah, probably. I think there's a glut of just RTD cocktails these days. So it's interesting that more and more celebrities are getting into the space. This brand in particular, Thomas Ashburn, which creates the cocktail, they just are really capitalizing on celebrities.

14:42All of their products are linked to a celebrity like John Cena, I think Playboy Cardi and... Sarah Jessica Parker. Yeah, Sarah Jessica Parker with her Cosmo, which is very on brand. Totally. Sex and the City. Yeah. But yeah, that's really what they're building their brand on is just celebrities and tying a cocktail to that celebrity. You know, what's interesting is you run the gamut from John Cena to Sarah Jessica Parker to Neil Patrick Harris, all of whom I would consider pretty well-known celebrities, in some cases A-listers. But I'm trying to figure out who would buy or be interested in buying the John Cena product because it's John Cena.

15:23What is the John Cena product? I believe it's an old-fashioned, right? Yeah. That does not make any sense. you know John Cena's gonna come he's from Newburyport right up the coast as it were in San Diego yeah I see him wandering around sometimes we gotta get him on taste radio Jackie you gotta be like okay I'll stalk him next time in Little Italy and you know what if he's like no I'm not gonna do it you can just do the chant that they do at these WWE shows which is Cena sucks Cena sucks you just prank call him he deserves it all right I like it well great talking about John Cena but getting back to reality here um hey wrestling is real that is real reality this new uh hoplark 0.0 collaboration with other half which is a uh brewery in new york city very well respected quality very well respected like well now people don't still wait in line for it i think you can get it in like you know the grocery store now but anyway uh still great liquid hoplark has a couple different flavors of these that they've just launched with, with other half.

16:27I think they all just use different blends of hops. It says non-alcoholic dry hop brew. So pretty excited to give this a try. Yeah. I want to try that too. And I really, I really liked the idea of using like brand equity from a known brewery for this too. That's, that's pretty cool. That 0.0 series is really great. I mean, for me, it'd be difficult to tell the difference between that and a beer, or at least a low ABV beer. I think those are just super for somebody who wants to just drink a beer, but not have the impact. Moving out of beverages here. I got this new Philomonella Isla sauce, which is described as a boozy pineapple rum sauce.

17:12This is, well, pretty incredible stuff. First of all, it's made with this Kusama, which is a small batch rum producer. And yeah, this stuff's pretty damn addictive. Feels a little kind of like a new type of product for Jake from Phil and Manila to launch here. But I'd kind of describe it. It's almost like a sweet and sour sauce with like a little like kind of rum flavor to it. Interesting. What have you used it with? It kind of goes nice with like savory things. We've been putting it on like banh mi sandwiches, which is probably some form of sacrilege, but also put it on some, had some like Asian tofu, some like takeout that I got at home that by itself was kind of whatever.

17:55But yeah, this - We should have Jake give us some recipes because whenever we go to the Phil and Manila booth, they always have something really good for us to eat. And I'd personally like to learn a little bit how to cook Filipino style food. And I think the difference between that and his other products is that one is the first that we, is in a squeeze bottle, right? Yeah, squeeze bottle. Yeah, you can just flip the top and... He just went for it. Oh, my gosh. Just take shots. It is red, right? It's so good. I don't know what to say about that. We'll have to cut that, or maybe we won't. No, we won't.

18:25We're keeping that. Oh, boy. That was awesome. Was it? You know, it is. It's really... I mean, you shouldn't do that because it's, like, really sweet. Sugar is the number two ingredient in this after water, so probably do not want to consume a lot of this just as a shot you just had your lunch is what you're saying yeah i'm just glad i didn't get it on my shirt but anyway so the product i want to talk about isn't in the office but it's on nosh.com and it's a collaboration between compartes which is a gourmet fine chocolate brand with you would never guess it velvita which is a high-end just kidding kind of low-end mac and cheese brand that i used to eat frequently when i was younger oh god wait is it mac mac and cheese or slices did you eat both yeah well they sold they sold i guess they do right yeah yeah but um they came out with a truff vel which is a truffle with white chocolate on the outside and velveta cheese on the inside oh my god that's gonna be good If you look at the packaging, it looks, you know, high end, looks like a gift.

19:36And you open it up and you have five shell shaped truffles full of Velveeta cheese. And the price point is$25. What? You're paying$5 a truffle. That's like when we went to London and got those Kit Kats. Those gold Kit Kats. That's right. The Kit Kat with the gold. Yeah, that was weird. You know, if it weren't announced six days ago. Yeah. and this is the first comment on their Instagram post about this. I would have thought this was an April Fool's joke. And I almost feel like they did this for shock value because Compartes is a high-end chocolate brand. It's a super premium chocolate brand. And Velveeta is, ain't that.

20:16And it's just kind of a weird collab. I mean, that's exactly why they did it. We're talking about it. Exactly. It's a PR stunt. But also, if you think about it, they also had the Veltini recently. So it seems like they're trying to do high-end collaborations to draw in a higher-end audience. But when you bite into that truffle, I don't know if you're getting a high-end experience. So it might be, you know, good for blips of exposure. But as far as long-term sustainable growth, not quite sure. But I'm still curious and I still want to try it. So Kraft Macaroni and Cheese did the partnership with Van Leeuwen's, right?

20:54And that was kind of weird too. But I feel like that almost made more sense because you get... Did that really exist though? Yes, it did. Yeah. Like, do we know anyone that actually tried it? No. Exactly. How did you not try it? You're like their biggest fan. I'm a big fan. I don't know if I'm their biggest fan. I think you are. I feel like Kraft Macaroni and Cheese somehow has a more premium reputation or slightly more premium than Velveeta. Velveeta feels like government cheese in so many ways. It's like a liquid cheese. You know, you just squeeze it out of a pouch. And when someone explained the experience, when you bite into it, you're getting that liquidy cheese coming out of the truffle.

21:31I feel like when people use it as an adjective, it's not a good thing. It's Velveeti. I'm going to agree with William Bill Green, who left a comment on this Instagram post from Capartes. William Bill said, oof, this sounds revolting. William Bill and I are kindred spirits because that's exactly how I feel. I'm curious too, you know, if you're Compartes and you get approached by Velveeta, like what do you, I guess you're getting a blip of exposure as well. But other than that, I wouldn't say they're, you know, partnering with a high-end brand. They just have a good sense of humor. Yeah. Maybe they were just here for the comments because there's a lot of good comments here.

22:12Annie underscore too tired said, y 'all be in sus AF. What is this sorcery? Oh my God. We should do a whole episode of you just reading comments. I had a great conversation with the founder of this brand, Midwest Juicery, which is a maker of cold-pressed HPP juices. You know, and I asked Ziad Burkett, who's the founder, how is it that he's finding traction with a category that seems to be in decline, that seems to be less relevant to the everyday consumer? and he said, well, number one, I looked at what the biggest problem was and the biggest problem with cold press juice and juice in general is freshness.

22:56No. Quality. Jackie, what'd you say? Sugar. Sugar, exactly. People pick up a bottle, they look at the back at Jackie once again with the right answer and they're like, why am I drinking a bottle of juice that has, you know, 20 to 40 grams of sugar? So what he did is really look at the opportunity to formulate these products with a lot less sugar. And he's definitely found a receptive audience. So exciting stuff. He sent us a bunch of his samples. I mean, this stuff looks good. It sort of feels like what's old is new again. You know, the cold press juice category got so far off of what it was originally created for that this is like, you know, what you'd expect to see on the market in, I don't know, 2018, right?

23:41But that doesn't really exist anymore. No. And one of the cool things is, so I have, they're sipping on ginger juice variety. And it has the ingredients listed on the front. It has apple, lemon, ginger, apple cider vinegar, and turmeric, cayenne pepper, and black pepper. With the first ingredient being apple, I assume there's going to be, or I assume there's going to be a lot of sugar in this. But there's only eight grams in this 12-ounce bottle. And the ingredients, again, the first ingredient is filtered water. The second is organic apple juice. So, yeah, I love the idea of an eight gram sugar juice.

24:18And I'm going to... Yeah, DNS. Trying this carrot one. Carrot for gold. No, the ginger juice one is really good. Well done. Thank you, Ziad. Nothing for me. I know. No, you don't get it, Mike. What's up with that? I don't get it either. I know. Mike, do you want the lava lemonade? Of course. Okay, there you go. Once again, thank you so much to Ziad Burkett from Midwest Juicery for sending us these products. Are you afraid I'll spill the beet? On a microphone? On your yellow shorts. On my yellow shorts. Just destroy everything. And you have to take them off and then that's just gonna be a whole HR issue in the office.

24:52We don't need that. It's like a bloodbath. We're gonna get Taste Radio cargo shorts in Mike's honor. I am very concerned about the direction of this episode. It's not. That's why we're getting over Mike. Got it. Yeah. This has pepper. This is awesome. Oh, maple syrup, cayenne pepper. This is really good. Midwest Juicery. Thumbs up. Indeed. Yummy. Have you guys tried Gutsy? I have. I tried the product at the Winter Fancy Food Show. I think I talked about this. I thought it was the founder, but it wasn't. It was a sales rep from the company. And he had a little wagon and he was taken across the floor on the last day of the show, bringing Gutsy to the people as opposed to the people going to the booth.

25:35And I thought that was a pretty good idea, even though I was probably against the rules of the show. I think it's a brand out of Quebec. This one's called Adapt 2. And the flavors I have are orange and turmeric and passion fruit hibiscus. I've had the orange turmeric. It's so good. A little confusing because their Instagram handle is Gutsy Kombucha. So I wasn't sure if they were trying to make this a kombucha. They're not. I asked. They said they're just busy trying to keep up with demand. So they haven't gotten around to changing their handle yet. So. So you're saying you have tried it or do you haven't?

26:09Yeah, I have. I have. It's tasty. You want to try it? Is it gutsy or tasty? Both. Okay. I have another beverage over here. Name is Jabin. We met the founder at Expo West at the Mina Meetup. And this is a Persian beverage with cucumber mint, electrolytes, gut health, hydration, lots of functional benefits. And it's really simple ingredients. So it's an apple cider vinegar beverage. The ingredients are water, apple cider vinegar, raw cane sugar, cucumber juice, mint cilantro, and pink Himalayan salt. And it's really, really refreshing. That just hits the exact right way, doesn't it? Yeah, it's huggable.

26:48It's really tasty. The fact that it has all of these functional call-outs in addition to that is just icing on the cake because it's just a really delicious, tasty beverage. Super good. I love the idea of a cucumber water. I love a cucumber water with functional benefits. I feel like that probably needs a package upgrade because in that glass bottle, it's a stock bottle. But if you get that into a custom or some sort of at least different looking bottle, I think it would stand out even better on the shelf. Agreed. All right, it's time to get to our featured interview for this episode. That's with Andrew Gard of Right Coast Brands.