Is It A Trend Or A Distraction?

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, Sean Craven, Melissa Travers, and Mike Schneider. How do you build a brand around the constraints you already have, and how do you know which trends are actually worth chasing? We dig into both questions, from Pathwater's efforts to define its identity beyond the bottle to the growing pressure to jump on every buzzy trend, even when doing so can drain time and resources. Well, normally when someone's out of the office, I say welcome back to that person.

0:53But since I was out of the office last week, I'll say welcome back to me. Thank you very much. Welcome yourself back. Thank you. It was very nice to be back. As you can see, we missed you. We did, yeah. Listeners might have noticed something off in last week's episode, perhaps. A blip in the radar. No, no. I thought it was great. I thought you guys did a good job. We had fun, but we struggled a little bit just to keep things going. Well, the cutting room floor stuff will never be seen or heard. I want to tell people that there was a blow-up rat outside and you were walking around with a little sign.

1:22A blow-up rat? Yeah, like for a strike. Oh, I see. Okay. You needed some context there. No, it's better without context. We had plenty of context. We talked about Hall City. John is from New York City, or at least, you know. New York City, Long Island. Come on, so far away. Close enough, close enough. If you've ever visited Manhattan and seen one of these giant rats in front of a storefront, it's the unions. You know they have unions everywhere, Ray. Yeah, but you don't see those except for New York City. I saw one in Chicago. Okay, maybe Chicago. Ray was locked out. Anyway. I locked myself out.

1:55I locked myself out. Well, while I was on my travels, it was funny. I felt my Boston accent kick back in. Little known facts about me. I used to have a pretty thick Boston accent. You did? I did. Really? Yeah, I grew up in the Worcester area of Massachusetts. Which you still don't know how to say, obviously. No, Worcester. Worcester. No. Worcester. Okay. Who are you? Who are you? Yeah. So, yeah, until I was about 12, when I moved to Connecticut, my family moved to Connecticut, I used to have a Boston accent. I used to drop every R. So instead of car, I would say car. And instead of locker, I would say lockers and things like that.

2:30So it's, for some reason. Did you use the bubbler? Bubler. Yeah. Bubler. Still does. Yeah, bubbler in Massachusetts is a water fountain. So if you wanted to go and have a sip of water at your school, you would say the bubbler. Bubler? It's more Rhode Island. Anyway. Anyway, anyway. John Craven has just a cornucopia of food and beverage brands by his side. Melissa and I do as well. Mike has, it looks like one snack bar. I didn't bring as many because I saw John just. There's no room on the table. Yeah. He looks like Santa Claus. Yeah. But what's that in your hand, John Craven? It's a Bear Brew Black Coffee.

3:07Bear Brew is the name of the brand. Black Coffee. It's a canned cold brew. It's pretty tasty. Okay. Wow, this can has 320 milligrams of caffeine. I'm going to stop now. Oh, bro. Slow down. That's rocket fuel. That's like three coffees. That's pretty straightforward. It's pretty minimalist. The name of the brand is Bear Brew. Black Coffee is the largest font on the can. It's almost like a gold. Keep it simple, Ray. Keep it simple. It says it on the back. Zero sugar and cold brew. Yeah. I like that. There are no added ingredients, no trendy concepts associated with this product or brand. And I wonder, and this was brought up in our pre-meeting, about trends and how distracting they might be sometimes.

3:51you know, we see this all the time, particularly in coffee, in the coffee category, where everyone seems to be trying to one up themselves and with adaptogens or flavorings or sweeteners or whatnot. And sometimes, as we've pointed out, less is more. And it's a lot easier to educate the consumer about what you're doing when you don't have as much to say. Well, PepsiCo's Pure Leaf launched their mental focus tea. It has the caffeine from the tea, but also L-theanine. so that's an example of you know launching something with adaptogens and maybe i don't know how successful it's been but it does make sense we see so many versions of beverages that have l-theanine and caffeine in them so i think that makes sense something like protein doritos i mean i haven't tried one but if they taste good you know that that could work too i guess if you're a small company with a limited budget i always advise and you don't have to take my advice.

4:45If you don't, it won't hurt my feelings. But I always advise you to stay with the one function that's in front of you, not have three or four or five different functions. You don't have enough SKUs. You don't have enough bologna sandwiches in your refrigerator to educate everybody. You don't have enough marketing dollars to just, you know, have multiple functions. And it's a different company if you start to veer too far from your primary function of your beverage. Hey, listeners, as of September 3rd, hot new jobs are hitting cpgjobs.com, including from Dione Life USA, Spike Dade, and Club 13 Herbals.

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6:08Your inbox should reflect the parts of CPG that matter to you. Choose from BevNet's seven free newsletters covering beverage, food, beer, spirits, careers, education, and more. Sign up and select your favorites at cpgmedia.com slash newsletter. I have two brands in my hand. Both are beverages. One is called Cherish, C-H-E-R-I-S-H, and it comes in a pouch with a reseal, well, not really a resealable cap. I guess you could reseal it if you want. A three ounce pouch. If you know Mama Chia, their chia squeezes is that kind of package. And it's 100 % cherry juice. And this is cherish your health, immunity booster, 65 cherries in each pouch.

6:52And, you know, for the average person, I think this is probably pretty easy to understand, right? Like it's just cherry juice. This is 100 % cherry juice. I think the hard part is, or the education component is, what does this do for you? See, I would think if you are a runner or an athlete, that actually does make sense. It's a squeeze pouch. You can put it in your, you know, your fanny pack that you're running with, that kind of thing. So I can see the audience. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's just easy to talk to people about what this is. The benefit is the next part of it, but the benefit seems a little bit easier to describe than say an adaptogen, for example.

7:26The other brand that I have in my hand was one called Vera, V-E-R-A, which is described as a productive elixir. Black cherry is the flavor of this product, which is lightly sparkling, no alcohol, 45 calories. It comes in a 12 ounce slim can. It is made with vinifera, red grape, adaptogens, and nootropics for mood, focus, and clarity. I, because I'm a beverage geek like everyone else in this room, wanted to pick this up and try it. A productive elixir seems like a difficult thing for a lot of consumers to understand from the get-go at least. I'm not hating on this. I'm just saying that this is almost the opposite of what we saw with Bear Brew.

8:10They've made up language. Productive Elixir. Have you seen that before? I have not. I've seen Elixir. I've seen Elixir. I've seen lightly sparkling Elixir. I've seen Elixir describing a functional beverage. I've seen Elixir describing a non-alcoholic spirit brand or things like that. But a productive Elixir is the first time I've heard that. What do you think of, John, when you hear elixir? Something functional that probably needs further explanation. That's what I think of, too. I think of like, I just don't quite know what this is. So I should call it an elixir because it's complicated. You know what?

8:40It is really delicious. It tastes like a cherry Coke. Is there caffeine in it? Yeah. Is there caffeine in it? See, when I think of productive, I think of caffeine. Yeah. Well, I think caffeine-free energy has been a trend that we've been seeing for a while. Can you turn that toward me for a second? Yeah, you got it. But it's pretty obvious if you look at it that it's going to be black cherry and it's going to give you that. But I still would kick that up. It's a little muted. Even though it's like front and center, I'd want that to pop out a little bit more. Because that's what I think is going to pull somebody in and then get them to read the rest of the can.

9:11Yeah. Well, it's cool. It seems pretty clear that the primary focus of Vera is their use of the vinifera red grapes. Now, vinifera red grapes are typically used for wine, not non-alcoholic wine for alcoholic wine. And they talk about the benefits of using vinifera grapes and I guess the functional benefit for consumers. But it's not very clear that that's the primary focus of this brand. What I would see as the primary focus is the added ingredients, the adaptogens and the nootropics. The front of the can looks more like a video game label to me. Like there's a lot going on there and I want it to look less technical, more like a beverage.

9:49I get that it's an elixir and it's supposed to be complicated. They're trying to explain a lot there, but maybe they've made a few too many decisions and simplifying that would help them. And if it tastes good. It really does. If it tastes good, you don't need to say as much. Yeah. Vera. I'm excited to try it. You knocked it out of the park with the flavor of this product, this black cherry variety. If you call it a cherry cola, I think a lot of people would reach for this. How many calories? 45. 45 per 12 ounce. Not bad at all. And sugar count, seven grams. And did you say caffeine? No, I don't think there's any caffeine in this.

10:21I think the energy boost, if there is one, comes from the adaptogens, but they describe the adaptogens as providing focus. Okay, consider me excited, but just also consider the amount of time that it took me to get excited. Yeah, I mean, we spent a good amount of time talking about Vera. We did. You have none of that time on shelf. No, you don't. And, you know, speaking of making things easy for consumers, a brand like Purely Elizabeth has made things very easy for consumers because they sell products that everyone is familiar with. And congratulations to Elizabeth Stein, who sold her company, was announced about two weeks ago.

10:57Ferrero announced that they will buy the company. Did you want to hear a fun number that's associated with that? I love fun numbers. So I was speaking with an investment banker recently who told me that even though the acquisition price was not disclosed, that Ferraro acquired purely Elizabeth for$900 million. Wow. And this is someone that I trust and that is very, very plugged in. I mean, that's interesting because that's a number. It's mind-blowing. You'd want to, that is usually a disclosure type number. Yeah. Usually when the number is disclosed, it's not a good number. That's a fantastic number.

11:40Elizabeth has been doing this for so long. She started the company 2009, actually, I saw in the article in Nosh about Ferrero. So it's just a good example of how these things can take a lot of time. I have right here purely Elizabeth's protein granola. Have you guys tried this already? Yes, good stuff. Yeah, 10 grams of protein. And this is another example of jumping on a trend. And there's also fiber here, 13 grams of whole grains. But if the product tastes good and people understand it, then it makes sense. I'm looking to see what the source of protein in here is. And I don't see anything that's added besides the oats, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, almond butter.

12:22But I don't see any whey protein, any collagen or anything like this. So it's seeds and nut butter. Yeah. So it's, I mean, it's a variation on the original, but she's calling out the protein here, which makes perfect sense. Yeah. Maybe even kicking up the ingredients that provide the protein too. I love what Elizabeth Stein has done with this brand. Incredibly, or maybe not incredibly. For me, it's incredible because she's a Boston University graduate. And now she's probably got$450 million in the bank. Anyway. I mean, you're also talking about what she's done with the brand. And I think at this point, we should talk about what her team's done with the brand, because we talk about a lot of, you know, the idea of CPG is to ascend from being a one person like brand.

13:08You're the kind of the cult of personality within the brand. And you make all the decisions to a place where you've got a full team that can do that stuff. And you're the person who's responsible for the vision of the company and keeping the lights on. And I think she's done a fantastic job of doing that. She has. And, you know, we were talking about trends and it seems like Purely Elizabeth has always stayed on top of trends, but in a really authentic way, in a way that's very specific and authentic to their brand. It's interesting because I was speaking with someone who actually we featured on Taste Radio not too long ago, who was kind of making fun of the fact that Purely Elizabeth added protein to their granola.

13:46Oh, no. And this is before the acquisition was announced. So that person might be eating their words at this point. With a little extra protein. Yeah. You know what, listeners, if you want to find out who that person was, go back and listen to the last five episodes of Taste Radio. I'm not even kidding. I'm not even kidding. And you will find out who that person is. It's like finding the prize in a box of cereal. Yeah. Yeah. I'll give you a hint. I'll give you a hint. That person is an investor. Now, I know we've had three investors on the show recently, so... Dun, dun, dun. Get going, kids. A brand that's received a ton of investment in, I don't know what the past, I want to say almost 10 years, has been Pathwater.

14:28Remember when you first met those guys, John Craven, Shadi Bakur and team? Don't know if I remember the first time we met them. I think it was like 2017, 2018. It's been a while. But they were a bunch of crazy kids, and they were like, hey, we're going to change the water bottle game. We're going to change the water game. Very nice people. They're great. Shoddy knows. Crazy kids. Yeah. No, at the time, they were a bunch of crazy kids, like every entrepreneur when they start out. Yeah. But if you don't know, if you've never been to Expo West, Bathwater is a brand that uses metal bottles that you can reuse and I assume recycle as well.

15:04And they've been the primary water sponsor of Expo West for at least five years or so. and they have received just tons of investment and most recently they picked up a new round that is slated for international expansion the new funding according to the article written by lucas southard follows a series b round that closed last october led by morrison seager partners so yeah they're doing pretty well for themselves at least on the investment front but what is pathwater you know i I even had a little bit of trouble describing what it is. Melissa, what's the path to water? Mike, I think you raised this question.

15:42Maybe it was New Beverage Showdown where you asked them whether they were a beverage business or a water bottle business. I actually think that their category ambiguity may have helped them a little bit. So they're a beverage when you go to a CVS or a 7-Eleven. They're a reusable water bottle when you're at a gym or an airport. They're a sustainability option for places that especially can't sell plastic bottles. It's merch for sports teams. So they have a partnership with a Canadian Major League Baseball team. They also do co-branded sports merch for like the Dallas Mavericks, for example. So it's merch when you're at a sporting event.

16:25And now they have stick packs, hydration stick packs that you can add to the bottles. So they're also a hydration platform. I actually think the fact that they aren't just one thing has helped them. I think what they are is a brand. Sure. They're a brand that does all the things that you just talked about. You know, looking back on it, I was like, okay, they're selling this bottle and where's this going to go? And it's just genius. Yeah. And it shows that the best channel for your brand is the one where your value matters the most. And that may be a number of channels. And back to Ray's point of a few crazy kids that we met, you know, they came to us, showed us their idea.

17:08It was like almost like a can that was shaped like a bottle that was resealable. And there was a lot of just new happening there. And they were among the first to try something like this. And I guess the timing was just right for it. And they also executed and executed and executed and executed and executed and stuck with the vision and got themselves out there. And yeah, now they're everywhere. I mean, they saw the writing on the wall when it came to single-use plastic bottles. It doesn't necessarily matter that you still see billions of single-use plastic bottles still out there. I think the future is looking more like it's going to be less of that.

17:48And the point is you see a lot more path water, too. You see a lot more of that option nearby. You see a lot more path water. I mean, you go to most American airports these days and you can see those, I almost call them airport bodegas, clearly they're not that. But you know what I'm talking about. You see less and less plastic water bottles, at least, and more and more aluminum. You see smart water now in aluminum. You see, I think, even Body Armor, their water is in aluminum cans or bottles. And so everyone's been following that path for a while. And it totally makes sense for their international expansion as well because Europe, I mean, I'm sure they have mandates, governmental mandates to really reduce the amount of plastic that's out there.

18:25And you have also the refilling stations. And if you forget your pathway, you just go buy another one. And then if you have to get rid of it, you don't feel that bad because you can recycle it. And they're not that expensive either. Right. No. It's an interesting thing. Like, yes, it's reusable, but I wonder what the average number of times somebody reuses the buy, but they know. Well, how many times have you reused the bottle at Expo West? The Pathwater Bottle Expo West, like two or three tops. I have bath water bottles from like two or three years ago. I always take, you know, the one that I get from Expo West home and I love sending them with kids to field trips and stuff like that.

19:02So if they lose it, who cares? But I mean, I have some old, I should bring in my collection of bath water bottles. I have a Monopoly themed one that I kept a long time ago. Oh, that's cool. Do you use it? No. Of course not. No, I keep it with all the other things in my closet and I have to shove the door shut and I'm going to hit it with my shoulder to get that door shut. I should have said rhetorical. Yeah. Just one quick point on Melissa, when you were talking about sports teams in Pathwater and you said they have a relationship with a Canadian Major League Baseball team. There's only one. It's the Toronto Blue Jays.

19:34I saw that and I don't know. There could be 50 for all. No, no, no. I don't even know what they're called. There were two. Montreal Expos. The Montreal Expos. Okay. And I actually got to see them in Montreal before they were shipped out to Florida and became the Miami Marlins. But anyway. Well, they became the Florida Marlins. Then they became the Miami Marlins. Which they should have been Miami from the beginning. Probably, yeah. I love sports games. Sports, go sports. Sports ball. I wonder if the guys from Pathwater ever had to change their label at some point and realize that they couldn't go to market with whatever nutrition information.

20:10Or maybe they had the ounces per bottle wrong on their package. Oh, boy. Had to keep a palace of product in their parents' garage. Yeah, we posted something on Instagram, when was that, about two or three weeks ago, about things that entrepreneurs probably aren't necessarily proud of, but are most likely things that are relatively common that you see in the food and beverage industry, at least on the entrepreneurial side of things. And we hear from the community all the time about how difficult it is to build a CPG brand. And we got these interesting mini stories from a lot of them and that we compiled into this post.

20:52One of my favorite ones is sometimes I open my velocity report the way you check your phone after texting someone at 2 a.m. I love the first one that I saw, which is I built a brand from nothing and I still cannot get the pop-up tent back in the back. Well, yeah, there's one. I started this company five years ago, and I'm still its only employee. This actually, this one sounds like something maybe, John, you ran into like way back in the day, probably not anymore. But I'm technically the CEO, although today I spent 40 minutes trying to make a QR code print correctly. I thought getting into retail was the hard part.

21:31Then I learned about staying in retail. Yeah. I have a five-year plan, and I also forgot to eat lunch. the good news is we got the po the bad news is we got the po i love that so good i love that so good but uh i mean we just wanted to throw a bunch of those out there and it seems like it resonated with a lot of people we hear these things all the time just keep your stories coming we're here for you we're that shoulder to cry on if you need one and you know we usually have a little bit of advice if you need some too. Absolutely. I have a brand that I first saw at the Summer Fancy Food Show. The brand is called Hole, H-O-L Health Club.

22:12And they're a maker of protein bars, specifically protein bars that are made with bone broth. Bone broth? Yes. Nice. In fact, it says in a little button on the side of the package, yes, it's made with bone broth. And then smaller or fond here, no, it doesn't taste like it. So these bars come in the usual pack size, 2.36 ounces, 20 grams of protein, four grams of fiber, yay, Melissa. Six grams of collagen, they are USDA organic. So this is kind of the same value proposition as the beverage marrow, which you get bone broth, but it doesn't taste like bone broth. There's also Nudo, a tomato sauce that uses bone broth.

22:54Yes, yes. So I invited the founder Mackenzie Muth and Nolan Spencer to join us for an upcoming episode of Elevator Talk. I actually thought they were based in Chicago because that's where their, I guess, official address is. So I wanted them to come to our Taste Radio Chicago meetup. But they emailed me back and said, not sure if we mentioned this at the show, the fancy food show that is, but we are currently living out of an RV and traveling around the country to support our retailers. Aggressive. That's awesome. That's amazing. Yeah. So that's what they're doing. I think they quit their corporate jobs and this is what they're doing now and clearly saving money living out of this RV, but also out there and spreading the gospel of whole.

23:36That reminds me of when Amy Bette, the founder of Mellow, the brand of Cava drinks was like living out of her Tesla. Tesla? Yeah, her Tesla. I don't know how you can live out of a Tesla. That sounds - She did a fantastic job doing it. I mean, that's how you launch retail. You need to be there. You need to see where it winds up. You need to visit the stores. That's great. Yeah. being a CPG founder is so sexy. Yeah, right. I sense another round of those quotes coming up on Instagram. Here they come. Well, it goes to show, you know, you can graduate from college and do all the things, get the good corporate job and you still end up living in an RV.

24:11Down by the river. Down by the river. It's a van. Van down by the river. Oh, a van. Well, an RV is a van that you can live in. Ooh. We should talk about that after the show is over. I'll allow it. You guys don't need to have that conversation. And just, of course, to reiterate, we had a fantastic time out of Chicago meetup. Thanks again to everyone who joined us. We have three more this year. San Diego on September 15th, San Francisco on September 17th, and London on October 21st. We want to see all of you there. I don't care where you live. You could live in Bujumbura, and we want to see you at all three events.

24:50In Timbuktu. Timbuktu. Tell them the web address. We want to see you, if you're from Kuala Lumpur, we want to see you at the London meetup, at least. We do. At the very least. Or you might be closer to San Francisco. It's a short flight. Short flight. Short flight. You can swim. If you're in Scotland, come down to London. Yes. The URL is tastereadio.com slash meetups to register for those events. And we highly recommend that you do because you'll know the address and we'll know how many hole bars to bring. Please, please RS3P. Tastereadio.com slash meetups. Once again, San Diego, September 15th, San Francisco, September 17th, London, England on October 21st.

25:27And bring samples. Bring samples. Bring samples of your products, not just for some random samples, right? Yeah, I would say it would make more sense if you brought your own, but I don't know. If you brought something else, I'd be interested to see what you brought. Please don't bring other people's samples. Yeah, that would be kind of weird. It's weird. It's weird. That's weird. Bring your samples. Sometimes, you know, Kartik Das, the founder of Dutra. Yeah, but you can bring them in your bag. That's because it's a car package. Oh, it's a car package. Okay. All right. All right. Everyone's got pistachio except for me and Melissa.