It's A Gen Z(ero) World. But, You Don't Need Millions To Get Their Attention.

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, Jackie Brugliera and Melissa Traverse. This episode features a conversation with Laura Merritt, the CMO of Diageo Beer Company, who discusses Guinness' innovation strategy and how modern trends fit into its approach. Melissa, welcome back. Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be sitting in a Taste Radio seat again. I know. Me too. I wish we had some Guinness, at least, you know, full strength, 0.0, one of the two.

0:49I don't know. I mean, there must be something upstairs that could fit the bill, right? Yeah. Well, I mean, I had a bunch of this Guinness at Expo West. People were wondering, wait a minute, Guinness at Expo West? Why was it there? And, you know, I get into this with Laura in our conversation. But man, that 0.0, which is their non-alcoholic product, is pretty fantastic. It's really good. I actually drink a lot of it because I happen to be in a lot of Irish pubs with all of my Gaelic footballers. And, you know, it's nice to alternate and you don't really notice a difference between the two. So in the Irish pubs, is the Guinness 0 %?

1:24Is that on tap or available right at the bar? So a lot of pubs, I feel like, are still testing into it and seeing that people are liking it. So it's not on draft yet. It's in cans. But I think that it could be in the future once they notice how many people want it. In the year 2000. In the year 2000. All the way into the year 2000, yes. Youngsters who are loyal listeners of the podcast, or even if you're not a loyal listener, I hope you will be at one point, but you probably don't get that reference. It's from Conan O 'Brien's Late Night with Conan O 'Brien, which was very famous in the late 90s and early 2000s for having a sketch called the year 2000.

2:01I just love Conan so much. Jackie recently returned from her annual trip to the one and only Coachella Festival, which highlights some of the most hip, new and happening artists of our time. Is that right? It's true. At least that's what they say. No, I mean, Coachella, what are the kids doing now? They, the universe or whoever markets Coachella, you know, great marketing. But yeah, no, it's the second time that I went. It was amazing. I know that everyone is kind of over. Well, everything is oversaturated with Coachella and people are kind of sick of it from social media perspective. Actually being there is a different experience.

2:46I would say like the music and the environment is top notch. I think it's also interesting to see some of the activations and some of the brands that were there. With so many creators and so many brands there, it's kind of a little bit harder to stand out. Some of the brands that I saw, I was actually driving in and I saw a billboard for Lucky Beverage Co. Formerly known as? Lucky Fuck. Hey! I can say fuck, right? Because it's in a name. and they had a billboard that said call us for a quick fuck and it had a number and you had to call the number and it was just like this woman flirting with you telling you to text them to meet up at Coachella I mean you know it caught my attention while I was driving on the highway I did call the number I think it's like a lot of people are taking that highway to get to the festival so it's just interesting how people are trying to capitalize on opportunities outside of the festival to, you know, create a little bit of fun.

3:45I hope your significant other has a good sense of humor about calling that number, because if I called that number, I might get into some hot water. I actually, yeah, I actually made her call the number. So that was smart. That was smart. The last time I saw an invitation like that, it was on the back of a bathroom door. So it's, um, geez, Melissa, what kind of places are you visiting? Oh my goodness. Where were you? Jeez. I have so many questions, but this is a family show. I didn't call the number. Well, just the fact that you were in such a place, Willis, I'm surprised and disappointed in some ways as well.

4:26It was a sordid past. Yeah. Something a little bit more wholesome, I would say, is Poppy had a unique approach. They had a home that they rented for a creator. Her name is Alex Earl. She has 3.5 million followers. And they only invited Alex and her friends and family to stay at this house that was just branded with all poppy. And a lot of people I saw online were having positive reactions, thought it was a little bit more authentic rather than tapping into a bunch of different influencers and just honing in on this one that, you know, she features a lot of friends and family in her content anyways.

5:06So it made sense. But yeah, just some interesting ways to stand out from like the influencer Olympics. I'm so curious, what were some of the posts like? Because I can see how something like that might seem contrived if you put an influencer in a poppy house. What was she talking about? Yeah. I mean, considering like, there was branding everywhere. It's kind of one of those things where she doesn't even have to be talking about the product. It's just generally in the content, which I think is a little bit more real rather than, you know, in your face here, I'm drinking this product and it's delicious, you know, a plug and just engagement with her friends and her family rather than, you know, again, just her.

5:54So yeah, I thought, I thought it was good. Also, obviously with the founders of Poppy being, you know, a husband and wife, If it's a family business, I think they're just tapping into that as well. I want to go back to Lucky Beverage Company. I have to not steer the F-bomb because I'm the host. You're the host. I'm one of the hosts. You said the standard. I start the show. Lucky Beverage Company, they are shifting away. Apparently, they decided that it's a little too controversial to be calling themselves Lucky F. So earlier this month on April 1st, actually, and I don't think this is an April Fool's joke, but our very own Lucas Southerd wrote a story about this.

6:34And they're trying to just go by lucky energy now. And they're adding a censored label to where the F used to be. I guess just poke fun at the old name, which makes me wonder for such a big activation at Coachella, maybe they're, I don't know, they're waffling on that. Or maybe this was an April Fool's joke. I don't know what's going on here. Or I think they're just picking, you know, the times and places to use that. like Coachella, I think they can get away with it. I don't know if like they had their product in like a family friendly grocery store, it would hit as well. So I think they're just, it's just like another point of their brand that they can use.

7:11Yeah. It seems like it would fit perfectly in with Coachella, but perhaps not at Walmart. Exactly. Well, interesting you say that because that brand based in San Diego, that is an almond based dip brand, Bitchin' Sauce, has an amazing following everywhere they are. They are sold, I don't know, in every natural, conventional and mass retail there is. And I remember when I interviewed the founders, I had said, I'm sure some people have a problem with this, like, you know, not to call it Utah, but I'm sure like in some places in Utah, they wouldn't want to sell a bitchin' sauce. And so they said, yeah, you know, we had to change the name for certain stores and retailers.

7:49And we changed the name to this sauce is nuts or something like that, something along those lines. And they said that that name and that product sold like 50 % less than Bitchin' Sauce. Like if they did a comparison of, you know, the two brands or the two naming variations sat next to each other, Bitchin' Sauce would always kill it as compared to the other one. It goes to show you what's in a name and why organizations protect their trademarks so carefully, because it has so much to do with the success of their brand. Gee, Melissa, that's a really good podcast or something. That's a really, really, really good segue.

8:32You know, I didn't want to lead off with Momofuku because we've been talking about it quite a bit, but it turns out that we're coming to a good conclusion, I would say. David Chang, on his own podcast last Friday, announced that they will no longer, Momofuku that is, enforce the Chili Crunch trademark. He had said, and this is the statement that he released on the podcast and otherwise, first and foremost, I want to apologize to everyone in the AAPI community, that is Asian American Pacific Islander community, who has been hurt or feels like I've marginalized them or put a ceiling on them by our actions, which I think is a very important thing for him to say.

9:18He also followed up by saying there is a lot of people that are upset, customers, and that's the last thing, literally the last thing that I wanted to happen. So, yeah, I mean, I feel for Momofuku and David Chang in that, like, this was probably something that kept them up at night for two, three weeks. And I'm sure people are like, well, good, it should have. But, you know, I think they were between a rock and a hard place. And I think when it came down to it, they went with their heart instead of maybe what their lawyers were telling them to do. And it's a good, like I said, I think it's a good positive conclusion.

9:50Thank goodness. I mean, I think David Chang has done so much to elevate Asian cuisine. I've always been such a big fan of his restaurants and the product line. But I went to actually go use his chili hot honey on some pizza. And I felt kind of bad about it before he, it just made me feel bummed that he was trying to sort of like, you know, take all the winnings, if you will, for himself. So I'm so glad he made that decision because the hot honey is really good on pizza and I don't want to stop using it. You know, that's the last thing, literally the last thing I want to do either, which is stop using Momofuku products.

10:28Not that I was thinking about doing that, but I'm sure it would have been a little bit of the, I feel kind of bad, you know, for Homia and for this little goat and some of these other brands out there that are affected by, you know, these cease and desist letters. But yeah, I think this was the right thing. And Mike and John, when they were here last week, and they're both on vacation right now, one in Mexico, he's in Cabo, John's in Cabo. And Mike's in Puerto Rico, getting some sun, good for them. They were pretty steamed. They were pretty, you know, emotional about this. That sentiment of being bummed that somebody that you appreciated and whose art or, you know, food or whatever it is you liked, it goes a long way.

11:12It's like, you know, if your favorite comedian suddenly you find out they have like something horrible going on. For me, I just can't watch it anymore. It just doesn't it just doesn't feel right. So I'm again, I'm so glad that they they changed their tune. What do they say? Never meet your heroes? Have you ever met your hero, Jackie? I don't even know who are my heroes. I needed to define that. Yeah. Who are your heroes? Okay. So I will say that, not to get too like mushy-mushy about this, but I would say, you know, people in my family are my biggest heroes, I would say. Okay. But outside of my family, one of my earliest heroes, everyone knows this, it was Peter Tamarkin from Press Your Luck, the host, the original host of Press Your Luck.

11:56He's had a big influence on me and a big influence on, you know, I guess how I want to be in the world and my public persona. And it was so great because I got an opportunity to speak with the new host of Press Your Luck, Elizabeth Banks, the actress, the director, the producer and host of Press Your Luck. Last week, she is the co-owner of a canned wine brand called Archer Roos. So I met with her and Marion Leitner, who are the co-owners of the brand. And what an amazing interview it was. I was so excited to sit down with both of them. And we had an amazing conversation that could have gone on for five hours, but ended up being about 45 minutes.

12:37And I'm really, really excited to share it with our audience. So sometimes it's OK to meet your heroes. Well, I actually I was castigating Elizabeth Banks that she stole my job. So I said, I got a bone to pick with you, Elizabeth. I literally said that we might we might have to cut that part. I follow up by saying that I'm jealous because it was my dream job to host the new Press Your Luck. But maybe she'll be nice and, you know, give me the job when she's done with it. Not that I'm planning to leave BevNet, folks. Maybe you can co-host, you know, special guest. Yeah. Right. I got to tell you, at this point in the show, I don't know how I'm still going because I just, I think about all the illness that is still out there.

13:19You know, all these kids going to school, getting the flu. We were just talking about this before the show, you know, getting the strep. Some cases getting pneumonia. That's why it's so important to be healthy before every episode of Taste Radio. And the best way for me to do that is to get my dose of Amuse. Amuse, folks, 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.

13:55We are very happy that Amuse is the presenting sponsor of this episode of Taste Radio. That plus your green juice and you're pretty much invincible. I saw you walk in with it. Did you see this? I did. I have it with you today. I have in my hand a 32-ounce bottle of Evolution Fresh's Organic Green Devotion. I've been sipping straight out the bottle, folks. This is good stuff. Will that be gone by the end of the day? Like, is that how much you drink in a day? Sometimes. Sometimes I will drink an entire 32-ounce bottle of green juice. probably not today, but I've given a good dent. I'll put a good dent into this.

14:29You know, you don't need to have a full bottle. Exactly. I'm going to have a little sip right now. You know what I fell in love with? I think it was BevNet Live. I went to Erewhon and I got their celery and lemon juice. And I know celery juice was a big thing, but man, do I just love celery juice. I think it's delicious. Celery juice. And there's a bunch of celery juice in this and a lot of other green juices that I drink, it gives a mouthfeel that is almost creamy, I want to say. It's like it's surprisingly viscous. You would think that celery juice is just like watery like a lot of other juices, but it's got a creaminess to it that you wouldn't expect.

15:05I feel like I can just feel the inflammation draining from my body when I drink it. Just like clinging in to all your cells and detoxing you. At the cellular level as well. At the cellular level, exactly. People ask me, they're like, oh, do you use green juice in smoothies? I'm not really a big smoothie person. But if I were a smoothie person, I would want to try a smoothie with this new product that we got in the office called Pecana. Well, it's a brand actually. And Pecana is, as you might guess, a maker of pecan milk. These are made from American pecans. And they have two varieties, both that come in the 32-ounce Tetra Pak cartons.

15:46One is an unsweetened variety and the other one is a vanilla variety. No added sugar, although it says it's not a low calorie food, interestingly enough. And it says to shake well, natural sediment and coloring occur. This is a beautiful product. I love this. It's beautiful. And I believe pecans are naturally high in fat. So I'd guess that it has a really nice creamy texture. Interesting. I'm trying to look for, okay. Total fat per cup of pecan milk or pecana more specifically, you get 12 grams. So that's 15 % of your daily value. Saturated fat, 1.5 grams, which is eight. But this is like the good kind of saturated fat, right?

16:28It's healthy fats. And I also appreciate that the milk is coming from a pecan, which seems like it should be milked. Sometimes - Did you say a pecan that should be milked? A pecan seems like it should be milked. Oh, I see. Like cats. Right. I was going to say sometimes it shows in whatever you'll see in milk being made out of something. And I always think of Meet the Fockers where, you know, can you milk me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. A cat has nipples. You didn't say it. I just said, OK, I'll stop saying that. I'm never going to be invited back to do banter ever again. No, I appreciate the fact that you intimated that cats have nipples.

17:08That's good stuff right there. That's what they call good banter. No, but I really love, I mean, this, this sort of the purity of the product comes through on the front of pack. You have a small pecan tree. By the way, you said pecan. I said pecan, but I'm saying pecan and pecan. Jackie, what? I say pecan. Pecan? Pecan sounds very affonding. Pecan. Pecan. Sounds very brahmin. Yeah, pecan. Like half and half with my pecans, you know. Exactly. I never, I actually never knew the Brahmin accent existed until I heard someone say, well, the Kennedys were famous for the Brahmin accent, but Hoff and Hoff, Hoff and Hoff.

17:52My mother has a little bit of it. She says Hoff and Hoff and Baff. Baff. Baff. Ooh. Run the Baff. That's serious. Yeah. That's serious. Anyway, back to Bacana, which is spelled P-E-C-A-N-A. So it's just a very clean front of pack. It's very clear which variety is unsweetened, which variety is made with vanilla in both color and description. And I think founder Courtney Chase has just done a fantastic job with this. I'm looking forward to speaking with her in an upcoming episode of Elevator Talk. Tune in for that one soon. Jackie, at Coachella, you gotta get your camping gear all set. You gotta get your tent all set, but you gotta make sure that your snacks and beverages are set as well.

18:39I'm curious as to what you had for snacks and beverages. I'm curious because I know what it is, but I want to share with our audience. Okay, you're leading me in. Here we go. It's a very leading conversation. Yeah, so I had Say So, which is very convenient when you're camping because Say So creates these sachets, kind of like a teabag where you put it into a spirit and water and you just kind of let it soak and it infuses it with all of the flavors of a nice cocktail. So this one's their skinny cardamom paluma. And yeah, it just says it's a ready to make cocktail sachet. And then you just have to add three ounces of cold water and one and a half ounces of spirits for three minutes.

19:23So, you know, I was just making some fancy cocktails at the campsite and everyone was very impressed with my skills. Did you bring, I was going to say nips, Small bottles of spirits. My goodness. Yeah, right? Small bottles of spirits, we'll call them. To mix them or did you have full-size bottles that you could use? I had full-size bottles, but you're not allowed to bring glass. So it wasn't the fanciest setup. I had water bottles just full of booze. And I had to label them to make sure that I wasn't like taking a swig from a water bottle thinking it was water. Oh, boy. Interesting. How do you say the brand again?

19:59Say so? Say so. Okay. If you say so. Oh! Oh! Oh, hey. Mike's not here, so I got to drop the dad. Yeah, right. Here's the sachet or sachet. I'm so interested in the say-so sachet. So did you find that the ingredients in there infused well? Like, did you really get a concentrated flavor from that? Yeah. Yeah, I did. So cool. Yeah, I did a good job. And yeah, you can see there's a lot. Like, it doesn't look like a traditional teabag. There's like lots of goodies in there. Very nice. Yeah. Yeah. And then every morning I was actually drinking a Gorgie because, you know, late nights, you need some energy in the morning, but without the jitters.

20:39And, you know, I wanted to also be glowing because I had to keep up with the influencers. Yeah. So, yeah, I was drinking Gorgie. Gorgie was founded by two folks who are quite familiar with the influencer scene, right? I mean, you interviewed them for Community Call, Melissa, right? Yeah, absolutely. So one of the founders, Michelle, had founded a very successful lingerie brand and they used influencers to build that. And then Maddie Lieber came from Facebook and Google and certainly knows all of the ins and outs around how to get exposure. There you go. Now, did you buy the Gorgia or were they handing it out to Coachella?

21:17I took it from the office. What? I mean, you do it all the time, Ray. It's not like I have a box of stuff that I brought. Oh my gosh. You took things from the office? I tried to pick up this box of stuff. And it broke. And the box is filled with so much stuff that it actually literally just broke. That's how many goodies you're hiding away. Yeah. I see that you have Mission Cocktails in there. I think they do such a fabulous, fabulous job. I just love their product. Mission Cocktails is a brand of bottled multi-serve cocktails based in, I believe, We're in California. They're based in California.

21:54I'm forgetting exactly where. In Ventura, California. The founders participated in our cocktail showdown in December of last year at BevNet Live. And this really made an impression among the judges and a lot of other folks that were a part of the audience. This is their newest variety, which is a jalapeno pineapple margarita. Crafted with premium tequila, orange liqueur, lime jalapeno, and pineapple. It comes in a 375 milliliter glass bottle, 25 % alcohol by volume. It has a beautiful, very tropical color that you can see it's a clear bottle. Yeah, this is delicious stuff. They make fantastic products and everything they make is just top notch.

22:37Thanks so much to Marcin and Amit, or Amit, excuse me, who are the founders, co-founders of Mission Craft Cocktails. Would you like this bottle? Yeah. Sharing is caring. Thank you so much. The bottle is beautiful and they have such a fresh flavor in a shelf stable mixer. I don't know how they do it. I think part of their mission is to make sure that they're using the highest quality ingredients, which I think a lot of bottled cocktails, historically at least, have not done. But yeah, it's a great brand for sure. Proof is in the margarita, the jalapeno. Exactly, exactly. I was very happy to receive samples of a new line of pouched aiolis that was just launched by Haven's Kitchen.

23:28Haven's Kitchen was founded by Allie Kane, Alison Kane. They market marinades and dressings that are sold in pouches as well, which are all refrigerated. These aiolis, fantastically, if I can use that word, are all shelf stable. And they use chickpea aquafaba, right? Chickpea water. I believe those are vegan. Yeah. So the ingredients in these products are the first ingredient, sunflower oil. You need oil, obviously, to make mayonnaise aioli. Water, chickpea broth, water on chickpeas, which is aquafaba, cane sugar, distilled vinegar, ginger juice, and then all the rest of the ingredients that make up the flavors of each individual variety.

24:09The varieties include a chili bang bang aioli, not to be confused with chili crisp bang bang aioli. too soon. Zesty jalapeno aioli and a sunshine chili aioli. I think they even have more flavors than that. And these are the ones that I was lucky to find in the office. They have an herby yuzu aioli. And that's the only one that I didn't mention. So well done, Allie. Well done to you and the team. I'm really excited to use all of them all at the same time, which I told her I was going to do. I was going to drizzle everything all into one sandwich all at once. So I will say, too, that Yuzu was a flavor that I saw pop up quite a bit at Expo West.

24:50So they've got that in their corner as well. Yeah. How about you, Jackie? Do you see Yuzu? You too? Yeah, I saw a lot of Yuzu all over the place. I mean, it's a great flavor that you can use in both food and beverage, you know, like wherever you're kind of thinking about citrus. It's just like a good option. And it's something that's trending, especially with like the increase in education around like Asian flavors and profiles. Totally. All right. So from Yuzu to Dandelion, they kind of align. They're both yellow. Anti-inflammatory, perhaps. We can go there. I'm just guessing. I don't actually know that for sure.

25:28But you're sipping on something that's a beautiful, that's a beautiful can. It's a beautiful can. It's Heel Tea. I have the peppermint and dandelion. What's the name of the brand? Heel Tea. How do you spell it? Oh, heal as in H-E-A-L-T-E-A. Isn't it heals all of your maladies perhaps? I guess so. Yeah. So this is the peppermint and dandelion sparkling botanical infusion. I love that these are caffeine free because I don't always want a bunch of caffeine in the things that I'm drinking. And I oftentimes make that mistake in our fridge. I'll grab something and drink it and then realize, oh no, I've had more caffeine.

26:03And they also don't use any, the only sweetener that they use in this is maple syrup. So they don't have any stevia or monk fruit or anything. And it has a really simple, clean flavor. They also have some other really interesting skews as well. They've got a ginger and chamomile, a nettle and rosemary, which sounded really interesting. I know that nettle is, I don't know, supposedly it has all of these healing properties as well. Nettle is a mushroom, right? I think stinging nettle, I think it's like a plant. And I looked it up and it's been used for centuries to help stop bleeding, apparently, wound and burn healing.

26:45But then I think it probably has all of the anti-inflammatory properties. And I think it's an antioxidant similar to dandelion and that dandelion is an antioxidant. It supports liver health and inflammation. But I think it's just delightful and refreshing. Just to clarify, nettle is definitely not a mushroom. As you pointed out, Melissa, it is a plant. And it is, as you pointed out, used to treat painful muscles, joints, eczema, arthritis, gout, and anemia. Okay, there you go. What more could you ask for? That is a superfood. That is a superfood. It's great to see just dandelion root and like nettle and all these very like functional plants that usually you only find in the tea, like non-ready to drink.