How Upstarts Shined At A Final-ish 'Fancy'

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 I'm with my co-host for this episode, John Craven, Jackie Brugliera, and Mike Schneider. This is a first for Taste Radio in that we have three folks in the San Diego office, the West Coast branch, as it were, and just one in our Newton Studio headquarters. Yes, just one. Flip-flopped. Mike and I flip-flopped. Didn't we do this before? No. I think all four of us were here, though. Yeah. That was great. I love that.

0:44I love that when Jackie was in Hugging Distance. That's my favorite. We've done two and two where we, Mike and I in the studio and then you and as in John and Jackie here in the San Diego office, but we've never done the three in one. Yeah. Well, here you go. How do you feel over there, Mike? How you doing? Lonely. He's clearly trying to channel Ray as in me. I refer to myself in the third person if you didn't know because he's wearing a hat. I know. I feel like that's also a first. It's a first. I've never worn a hat before. He has also worn a hat once before, and he was trying to mock me because he was wearing, like, a button-down blue shirt and a hat.

1:22And he's like, I'm Ray. Look at me. I was like, look at me. I am Ray Latif. But I was that day trying to mock you, but not today. I'm wearing my Live Laugh Labney hat, which I love, which I got from the founder of Bezzy. Nice. Very cool. And I'm not that lonely because my DMs are exploding with people who are like, where are you? Where are you? Where are you? I've got photos of you guys. So I feel like I got a little taste of what it must have been like to be at the Fancy Fish Show. For the record, I just told everyone that you were over at the Circus Circus Casino smoking a cigarette and wasn't in any shape to go to the show today.

2:02I was too loaded. I was in the gutter. You were just at the slots like, you know, 3 to 3. At the slots, just barely hanging on. 3 a.m. to 3 p.m. That's what was happening. Oh, he was at the place that had to sign for the$3, what was it,$3 shots? Beers. $3 beers and$3 table games. Yes. Disgusting. Wow, what a bargain. We won't mention the name of that casino. But yeah, what John and Mike are referring to is the Winter Fancy Food Show 2025, held in Las Vegas the last couple days. Today's the last day of the show, but here are John and I in San Diego, because tonight is Naturally San Diego's pre-party, exclusive pre-party for the UNFI show out here, of which we will all be attending.

2:44And I'm very excited for that. But yeah, Winter Fancy Food Show also never fails. Tremendous show, I thought. But this is the last edition of the Winter Fancy Food Show. It is evolving. It's becoming Winter Fancy Fair. Oh, I'm excited. Yeah. Yeah, because it's in one of our favorite cities too, right? Exactly. Exactly. Yes. Coming here. Well, what's interesting is that they're sunsetting, or according to the Specialty Food Association, which puts on this show, it's evolving into Winter Fancy Fair. Now, the details aren't exactly clear. It's not exactly clear what's going to change about the show other than its location.

3:23Next year, the Winter Fancy Fair will debut in San Diego. And at the San Diego Convention Center, very excited for that. I guess everyone in the office should be able to attend without much trouble. Oh, yeah. I will definitely be there. Very cool. There's no reason not to. Exactly. And then the following year, going to return to its roots, the show's roots in San Francisco. San Francisco! Yes. Yes. Yes. I love the San Francisco Fancy Food Show. I mean, that was a great show. It had such a good vibe and just it was a great way to kick off the year. I'm looking forward to the Summer Fancy Fair, though, too.

4:01I mean, we love San Diego. Well, it'll still be the Summer Fancy Food Show. It'll just be Winter Fancy Fair. So I guess the nomenclature is changing, even if the shows may not be changing that much. Got it. TBD. So yes, San Diego and San Francisco, we are excited to be there, but we're also very, very excited for next month because next month, Taste Radio and BevNet will be hosting an industry networking meetup in the sunny city of Miami. We've talked about this. It's happening February 11th at Ampersand Studios, 6 to 8 p.m. We will be there for two hours interviewing folks at the event, but also mingling, networking, talking to local food and beverage entrepreneurs, investors, distributors, retailers, all of whom will be there.

4:46We want to see you there as well. If you are based in South Florida or thinking about being there in early February, we want to see you. So we're going to have a sign up on our website. Yes. Yes. You just go to tastevideo.com slash Miami. It is a free RSVP, but we do ask that you do RSVP so we know who's coming. Space is limited or something like that. No, it's at a very cool venue. So yes, space is actually limited. Yeah. And we also request that you BYOS bring your own samples. Absolutely. Many thanks to our partners for the meetup, New Water, N-E-A-U, Water, and Matriarch Capital. Very excited to see those folks as well.

5:27Yes, thanks. Yes, very excited for another trip. Yeah, you guys are just jet-setting. Going on the road again. East to west, back to east. I don't even know where I am right now. Is this New Jersey? I don't know. Yeah, we got it pretty early this morning. Left Las Vegas. We were in the cab around 6 a.m. I actually made myself a cup of coffee here in the office to wake myself up a bit. But you remember that movie Elf when Will Ferrell, he goes to that cafe? I can't say I'm familiar with that movie right now. The world's best cup of coffee. He goes, oh, it's the world's best cup. I made myself the world's worst cup of coffee actually here.

6:02It's terrible. Well, we also don't have the same level of coffee. You got no barista here. Yeah. No, it's like it's been sitting out for three days. Someone put it up, not in even a microwave. Somebody put it like outside so that it would be heated up by the sun. And this is what I have in front of me right now. Did you just do the curing? Is that why? No, I made, I didn't even grind new grounds. It was the grounds that have been ground already in there since like night. Leftovers? Another reason to bring Mike along. Yeah. Ryan, our audio studio director for this episode, is looking at me like I'm absolutely out of my mind.

6:34All right. I want to talk about some stuff we saw at Winter Fancy Food Show because we saw quite a bit. So much stuff. Yeah. We saw Laurel's Coffee, a maker of A2 milk infused or maker of lattes made with A2 milk. They have a couple of different varieties. Very delicious stuff. They come in. Is it 10 ounce or slim cans or 12 ounce slim cans? I think it's 10 ounce. I think it's 10 ounce. Yeah, 10 ounce slim cans. It's based in Los Angeles. They are in a handful of retailers right now, but making a big push into new ones pretty soon as well. I think they're getting into, if I recall, the founder telling us that they're going to be making their way into Whole Foods regions coming in March as well.

7:11That would be an 8-ounce, Ray. I'm like, there's no such thing as a 10-ounce can. There's no such thing as a 10-ounce can? That's an 8-ounce right here. 8.4. 237 milliliters. It's the energy drink can, you know, the Red Bull can. Yes. And actually, I misspoke there. They're going to be launching in some regions of Whole Foods in September, not this spring. So, yeah. They're also doing a label refresh, which we saw. It looked nice. Yes, it did look good. Hail M Cocktails. Now, everyone has probably seen these cocktail mixer type brands that have the ingredients in a tea bag, right? Yeah. So Hail M is not too dissimilar from that.

7:48Although what they were exhibiting at the show looked pretty darn amazing. I have a plastic bag, so it's going to make a lot of noise. Okay. But they have this old-fashioned. They're cute. And then they had, would they have a Moscow Mule as well? I think they had a Moscow Mule variety as well. And it comes in a little teabag just like this. And I know we've seen ones, let's just call it Say So. Say So, which has a, it's a much bigger teabag. But look at this. I mean, if you were watching on the. Yeah, you can see all the goodies inside. On the video, yeah. Dried fruit. I think that's brown sugar.

8:19Yep. So you just put this in your cup. You put a little bit of bourbon on top of it and you get yourself an old-fashioned. Save it for the flight home, Ray. I might just do that. Yeah, look at this. You get a sugar cube. It looks like a little raisin or maybe it's a cranberry and some dried orange. So, yeah. Maybe I'll try this like right now because we got some. I was opening up all the cabinets. We got a little early for that, Ray. I was looking for some good coffee. I couldn't find any. So that's why. Yeah, there might be bourbon in that coffee. Yeah. I mean, maybe try coffee beans next time instead of macadamia nuts.

8:49Yeah, I could do that. John and I also tried a brand called Mate Party. I mean, this was a really great looking brand and had delicious products that we got to try. What's interesting about this is, you know, when we see new Mate, Yuramate brands come to market, and sometimes they seem to be grounded in the whole ethnic aspect of Yuramate a la Aguaya Key. I felt like Mate Party really brought a fresh approach, a differentiated fun approach to that category. Yeah, it definitely has like a, I don't know, kind of like a retro vibe to it of sorts. And it's not trying to scream caffeine or energy at you.

9:27It's just kind of cool and fun. Yeah, absolutely. They have three varieties. They have an unsweetened, a lightly sweet, and a mint grapefruit, which was my personal favorite. It's funny. I was talking to the founder and I said, I remember seeing your brand at a local small independent bookstore in Brookline where I live called the Brookline Booksmith. Shout out Brookline Booksmith. and they actually have a pretty amazing beverage selection there. And she said, yeah, we do really well. We ship product direct to that store. And she's like, yeah, we're always sending cases of stuff to that store.

9:59So, yeah. I've had a mint mate before, if only I could remember where. I'm not sure. It's a mint mojito, sir. And that is JAS, which is a maker of non-alcoholic cocktails that Mike is holding in his hand. This is their new product, which is their mint mojito, which we tried. Mojito fresco. So yeah, this was also the product that Ray said to them, like, can you send a sample? And then they were like, we already sent some to the office. Mike has them. And also you have them. I do. No, I said, I was like, I have these in my fridge at home. Yeah, we have them. Yeah. Well, that was the thing. I was like, yeah, whenever you can, could you send us some samples?

10:39And look, somehow they got on the show. Oh, it's funny how that works. No. And they were like, yeah, we already sent samples. And John was like, yeah, we already got samples. I'm like, what samples are you referring to? We could have had more jazz. Well, I asked, look, Mike, I'm looking out for you because I asked a brand that we saw exhibited at Fancy Food Show to send us some samples of their products. And that brand is Edenesque, E-E-D-E-N-E-S-Q-U-E. And they are a maker of plant-based milks. They have an oat milk. They also have a pistachio milk, a barista blend. That was phenomenal. It was so good.

11:23Was it good? And it's a barista blend? Yes. So it's extra thick and creamy? Yes. They also... Get in my cafe. They did say that they had seen your latte videos. And they wanted to be part of our setup. Yes, they follow you. It's a little influencer. Oh, Eden-esque, thank you so much for the kind words. And I would love to make lattes with your... about your lattes. So don't make any assumptions here. I'm just... But we will have some shit. Thank you for any words. Thanks for talking about us. Pretty tasty stuff. Yeah, and I'm just going to read from their card that they sent me here or they sent with me from the show.

11:58A BIPOC LGBTQ women-owned company on a mission to advance social justice through nourishment. I love that. I'm already bought in. Well done. I love the little tagline, too. What is the tagline? Be the love. Be the love. Yeah. Nice. Nice. Look, I'm the love. John's got like 8 ,000 products in front of him. I know, he's just like chomping at the bit, ready to go. What's cool about this is not every one of these brands we saw exhibited at the show. So, for example, one brand you met the founder on the plane, all the way over here. Another one you just met on the floor. Another one you met at the startup CPG party.

12:36And then the other two. On the floor of the show. When you say on the floor, it wasn't like laying on the floor after a, like me, on a bender. I'm not going to implore, you know me. Shove the product in his face. Yeah, but I was networking all the way down to our flight from Vegas to San Diego. We're flying on Southwest. That's such a weird airline. But, yeah, the boarding process is so strange. No more of that since the show is moving from San Diego. We just have to go from San Diego to San Diego. So I'm, like, sitting in the window seat, and eventually someone sits in the middle seat next to me because, you know, it's Southwest.

13:09Like, people get on in the window in the aisle. So we have a weird elbow sort of, you know, middle seat. And anyway, I started talking. It was Christine, who's the co-founder of NUFS. So I got a nice box of samples. And NUFS is spelled N-U-F-S. Yeah. Was that after you battled her for the armrest? I didn't win that battle. No, just kidding. No battle. But yeah, we had a lovely conversation. Good way to pass a, what is it, 42-minute flight where it seemed like the captain couldn't fly the plane either. It was just a washing machine. anyway yeah but these are uh the hot honey flavor this is uh gluten-free dairy-free seed oil-free did you say what it is nuffs i said enough it's crispy crackers is what it is crackers excuse me but these are the hot honey flavors i don't know kind of a fan of anything with hot honey but yeah the base like nuffs flavor is really good hot honey is like next level so uh super excited for that.

14:07And she was heading down here for the Unify show. Yeah. And for NST. Can I talk about my label hierarchy real quick? Oh yeah, talk about it. I know, I get to try it. I think the label's great. Label hierarchy on this is phenomenal. Okay, so they're not like loading you up with the gluten-free, dairy-free, seed oil-free. Like it's at the top. That's great. It's part of the brand. Nuff's, the logo is huge. Crispy crackers underneath Nuff's, you know what it is. You have a picture of the product right in front. And then you have the hot honey variety on the bottom. And it's like, this to me is perfect label hierarchy.

14:38And picture of the product that looks actually appetizing. Right. Like I want to eat that. You can see the hot honey. Yeah. Right. Made with simple ingredients, made with olive oil, made with almond flour. All that's like at the bottom of the box. But what's clear is the name of the brand. You see the product. It looks delicious. You want to pick it up. You want to know more. Great stuff. Also got some Dixie Grace's boiled peanuts. This is like one of these. I mean, man, I'm going to say something here that I'm going to regret. But PR person was like, you should go visit this. Shout out Susan Fecco.

15:09Yeah. I mean, she does a nice job of telling you what you need and not being like, you know, crazy pushy. So, yes, thank you for that. But anyway, I'm really glad we stopped and tried these. These are, you know, flavored and I guess unflavored boiled peanuts. You can basically eat them right from the bag or microwave them for 45 seconds. a little bit of like nostalgia for me from like going down South Carolina, Georgia area as a kid, but really tasty, really nice founder, you know, great story. Yeah. I had no idea this type of product boiled peanuts that is had its roots in South Carolina. Apparently if you go to a convenience store in Southern, Southern Cali or Carolina in South Carolina, or everywhere, really?

15:56Okay. Those are the good ones. Yeah. That's the best. It's like a, you know, like a little taco stand. Like that's their taco stand. Boiled peanuts. Maybe some peaches too, but not boiled. John and I were eating everything. So the shell and everything. That's what you do. Apparently Susan was like, oh, you guys are eating with a shell? You don't break it open? We're like, no, that's great with a shell. And then the founder of the company was like, oh yeah, you get all that good fiber. And all the flavors on the shell too. Exactly. Yeah. That hot and spicy one. Fantastic. Really, really good. Why are you guys allowed to get straight boiled peanuts in South Carolina, but I'm not allowed to get street fish in hawaii i don't understand like street ceviche i'm buying that yeah exactly um another another brand that we met which is a pretty cool concept it's called the cumin club and these are basically you know on the outside looks like just the standard kind of flexible package you know indian kind of meal kit but this is actually like freeze dried so there's no liquid in here.

16:55You basically like rehydrate it and cook it, but the flavor on it, you know, we were trying them at the show. It's like kind of insane. I mean, it tastes like something that's like really intense and freshly made. So once again, what is it though? So the cumin club is the maker of individual servings of meals, Indian meals. And so they have a number of varieties, but as John pointed out, all you need to do is rip open the pouch, pour it into a pot, add some water, Have it simmer. It's ready in five minutes. All right. So you have a delicious Indian meal in five minutes. Yes, freeze-dried ingredients.

17:29According to the Pollock Paneer variety, there's 14 grams of protein per pack. It tells you the spice level. Also, really good label hierarchy on this one. I feel like you get a picture of the food. You get the logo right in the center, and you get the flavor name right underneath that. And are they super cumin-heavy? Is it like a cumin blast? That's actually a good question. I don't think so. I mean, we... because now we've got a cumin coincidence here we've got the talk back where i thought that was pretty cumin heavy now you got a cumin company i mean maybe cumin's a trend here i'm not sure i mean we were trying these at a trade show where we had been sampling but i mean i feel like they were really like well balanced you know yeah i think it's interesting too that they're explaining that like paneer is like indian cottage cheese which cottage cheese is kind of trending again you know sure actually that's a really good point jackie yeah it described on the front of pack here pollock paneer indian cottage cheese cubes yeah which is definitely attractive to yeah consumers that are more like i don't know mainstream it does and then their variety that we tried that i really loved was their dal tadka dal tadka which is creamy indian yellow lentils with tomatoes and onions this is fantastic in my belly yeah that sounds good yeah freeze drying is like really interesting because i'm seeing more and more of that i think it's just like from a shelf stable play.

18:47And, you know, I've been eating a lot of stuff on the trail and this looks way tastier than what I'm used to. Well, also weighs a lot less. Yeah. I don't know. Can I open this and it's like Spaceman ice cream? It could be. I would guess so. Yeah. I'm not going to do it. No, that's another good point. Don't waste that. No, we're not going to waste this. We're going to bring this home. Don't worry. Mike's like, don't eat that yet. These are my samples. Oh, You can put that in your carry-on, right? It's not liquid. You can put this in your carry-on. I mean, just distribution costs, you know, putting this on a truck, you could probably put a million of these on there.

19:22It sounds like they'd be pretty easy to ship if it's space-packed. Yeah. You can also get one other brand ripped open there. Oh, yeah. You got two, really. These are the snacks that didn't make it, so to speak, because I ate them.

19:37One is Pulpido, which this is the masala mango flavor. We've talked about these before. They're so good. Bopito is the maker of fruit jerkies where they source fruits from Pakistan, I believe. Yeah, and apparently they really love the comment we made about the mango guy looking stoned. Which is weird because this masala mango guy looks like he's smoking crack or something. Yeah, he looks so high. He looks so high. He's extra. And he's holding like a little... Just breathing fire. A little thing that looks like a booze bottle too. Yeah, he's boozing him. He's high. Yeah, super nice, folks. It tastes so good.

20:14He's going to eat the whole pack of himself. I probably will. It's funny you mention that because we shared a taxi to the Startup CPG party with Kristen Charbo from Glow Nuts yesterday. We had some good conversations there. And she's like, I remember the very first time you guys mentioned Glow Nuts on Taste Radio and how Jackie was the one who introduced it to us. And everyone was just like, does it have THC in it? It looks like it has THC in it. And she's just like, I just love the fact that they mentioned Glow Nuts because no one knew who we were. And yes, you know, they were just kind of joking around about it being like a weed product.

20:49But in the end, it got me to know the BevNet folks a little bit better. And I mean, since then, we love those guys. I mean, they're great. They make great, great, great products. And I feel like also the packaging shows how playful the founders are a lot of times too. Totally. If you haven't seen it, go to their Instagram right now and watch their Highs and Glows series. It's a really great take on what it's like to be a founder, the highs and lows, and they call it highs and glows, of being a founder. And it's, you know, they really go into the ups and downs of it. And it's funny, but it's not funny, too.

21:24Last one, which Ray mentioned before, these are Breaking Granola Bites. Breaking Snacks is the name of the brand. Those are their granola bites, yep. Are you going to tell me if they're like a LLC or a C Corporation next, Ray? No, because they're going to— What state are they? They're going to join us. For an upcoming episode of Elevator Talk. Anyway, these are super tasty. I don't know. I kind of like the granola cluster thing, like compared to like the purely Elizabeth ones that we tried. These are a little like softer in texture. These are super tasty. Nice job. Absolutely. Absolutely. Quick break.

21:57If 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. Visit TASTERadio.com slash Insider to learn more. Will you guys indulge us? Because we have even more to talk about from the Fancy Food Show. Keep it going. It feels like I was there. Yeah, it really does, doesn't it? You brought the show to me. John and I also tried a new, it's kind of like a salsa matcha type product called Tierra Negra. And it's made in Chicago. They work with a hatchery out there, which is a great incubator in Chicago.

22:31And it's described as premium Mexican dark salsa. This, my mouth is watering because it was so damn good. That was really good. It was definitely different tasting, different texture, different kind of product than what we've already seen from salsa matcha is out there. The founders were talking to us and they were like, yeah, you can, it's pretty versatile. You can use it as sort of a condiment. You can, you know, just use it with tortillas. You can smother a steak in it. And we were like, oh man, that sounds so incredible right now. It almost made me, like I was thinking about that product this morning as I was looking through my photos, and it almost kind of made me feel like it was like if a mole and a salsa matcha had a baby.

23:09Yeah. Really good, like, depth of flavor. That exists? Sounds delicious. Yeah. Yes, please. I'm hoping we can get samples. I gave them my business card, so we'll see. Yeah, Ray was just, like, giving out his card like crazy. Yeah, and then my cards were all over the floor. And then my shoes fell off. I love Vegas Convention Center. And my glasses. Oh, no. Speaking of steak, when I say steak and winter fancy food show, what are you thinking of, John? Oh, yeah. I mean, it was sort of like an odd talk of the show. And if you've been to a winter fancy food show ever, you know, the place to eat is the, you know, they have these international sort of, I don't know, aisles from different trade associations.

23:45And the Japan one is like no joke. They have, I mean, geez, at least two or three options for sushi and raw fish. Really, really good sushi. And then they had another one that just had like ridiculous looking Wagyu steaks that they're just like cooking and like cutting little, you know, hunks off for you. It could have been literally thousands and thousands of dollars worth of steak that they were cooking up and frying up. But I mean, I feel like everyone I talked to was like, oh, yeah, I had that like three times. Everyone's doing rotations, putting on a different hat, different disguise. I ran into Justin Procknow, the famed attorney, on the casino floor where we were staying.

24:23And he goes, did you walk the floor today? I'm like, yeah. He's like, did you try the steak? He's like, that was incredible. The Wagyu steak. I know. The talk of the show. I've seen Ray try to wheel out a whole wheel of brie. Like a tractor tire of brie. I mean, if you compare it to other shows, though, it's like at Expo West, like you're just eating like packaged snacks and such the whole time, you know, like it's a little rough on the stomach after a while. Or there's like knacks, you know, I know give you crap for your Krispy Kreme and fried chicken meal that you always eat. But like seeing like a Hebrew national hot dog, you're like, oh my God, health food, you know?

24:59So yeah, this was, uh, I don't know, just kind of nuts to have that on a trade show floor. Yeah. And back when I was, when I was, uh, still imbibing, if you hit France at the right time, they'd have like the best cheese and the wine that goes with it, of course. So you hit that area at the right time, you were, you were having some nice wine. yeah well you know what wagyu beef wagyu steak it's a good departure from everything else that you're you're eating at the show even though everything we had at the show for the most part was amazing yeah definitely a lot of great stuff yeah another plant-based milk uh brand that i wanted to talk about was milkish m-i-l-k-ish uh they make a watermelon seed based milk and watermelon seed actually produces a pretty damn good alternative milk we had their original and their vanilla variety both incredibly john contain no sugar which was amazing like the watermelon and there provides a sweetness and a flavor that requires no added sugar and there's no added sugar no added sugar not no sugar there's no there's no sugar either i mean it could be less than whatever the amount is that you round down to zero that's your fda but anyway yeah it wasn't really like sweet it just kind of almost like took the edge off a little bit gave it a little little bit more like depth, but yeah, that was, that was a product.