It's All About That 'Aha' Moment... And The Lifetime Customers That Follow

0:10Hello 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 This episode features an interview with David Garci Aguirre The Master Miller and Vice President of Operations for Corto Olive Who reveals everything you needed to know about olive oil But were afraid to ask 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 Tasteradio.com slash VIP and take one minute to sign up.

0:52I'm excited to see all our VIPs in New York City. If listeners recall, John Craven is offering anyone who is a VIP a free Negroni or two. Just make sure to bring your official laminated Taste Radio VIP card. Okay, there you go. If you don't have one, just hit up JohnJCraven at BevNet.com. Just demo me a$100 replacement fee Was it one or two Negronis? I think you just said one Why are you trying to make the offer get better? Just one One for me, one for whoever One per$100 card All right BevNet will never charge you to be a VIP Just saying Yeah Okay VIP is free Anyway We will see you in New York City VIPs On June 14th and 15th at the Metropolitan Pavilion That's when BevNet Live Summer 2023 is happening Look, I always tell people this.

1:43I've always talked about this in the podcast. Save money. Early registration ends on May 5th. You're running out of time to save loot. And who doesn't like to save loot, especially in our industry? That's a good question. Apparently no one. Yeah, I don't know. Why wouldn't you want to save some money? And if you're an insider, you save even more. So multiply those savings. Two times the savings. There you go. It's complicated math. Now, as of this recording, I have not yet been the emcee for the Naturally San Diego Pitch Lamb. That's happening in a couple of days. But I feel like it's going to give me good prep for New Beverage Showdown 25.

2:21Oh, yeah. Which is also happening at BevNet Live Summer 2023. Highly encourage folks to apply for that. The deadline, Jackie, is May 12th. May 12th. Yeah, lots of deadlines coming up in May. Yes. If you're looking for tips on what you should be expecting, if you are accepted to participate in New Beverage Showdown 25, we just had a fantastic community call where we had two past winners and a semifinalist offer some great insight into what it's like to be up on stage. And one of the winners actually was one of the judges, too, Alison Ellsworth from Poppy. That's right. Formerly known as Mother Beverage.

2:56Right. She gave some great advice on what the judges are looking for and a little bit about the process and just what's important to the judges. I always tell people before they go up on stage, be memorable. And John Craven can attest. Mike, you can attest too, because there are 12 brands up on stage. Everyone's got different stories. I mean, typically we're on stage for what, 70, 80, 90 minutes. And it's easy to get forgotten, frankly. So be memorable. Jackie was a judge? Yes, just like I forgot Jackie was a judge. All right. Do that again. Do that again. No, no, no, no. That was a good piece of humble pie.

3:34Sorry, Jackie. It's all right. Especially because I advocated for you to be a judge, and I still advocate for you to be a judge. Anywho, be memorable. Yeah, I was going to say, I was on the judging panel with Allison from Poppy, and we had a lot of conversations in the judges room just talking about branding, identity, their founder stories. And in that community call, Vasa from Purfi really talked about his story and his pitch. And then Max from Plink provided some insight into his product and his pitch as well, and how he really wanted to get to the second round to have his co-founder be on the stage.

4:10And yeah, it was just really interesting in the judges room to just talk about what is a brand, what is going to resonate with consumers, and is the product good? Does it taste good? I think those are the keys to your pitch. One of the questions was, am I ready? Should I be in a smaller competition? And the answer is, you're probably ready. It's a safe place to pitch. You want to be up on stage. You want to get the feedback from the judges. You want to get feedback from people in the audience. So many times you hear things like, Allison was right or Jackie was right. And a potential partner came up to me and told me how I should get things done.

4:44And, you know, there's been times people like, oh, Mike was wrong. We do it this way. And all of that stuff is valuable feedback that you're going to get from being on stage and doing the new beverage showdown. And you're also joining a community. The founders talked about how they're part of a cohort now and they're checking in on each other's progress. When you pitch on stage, you join that community, you get that feedback. It's not all about winning. It's about the connections and tapping into that beverage community. Just to follow up on Mike being wrong, Mike was big time wrong about liquid death.

5:13Didn't even get into the finals. Huge mistake. So wrong. No, in all seriousness, it's also about awareness, you know, introducing yourself to the beverage community. So we just published an episode of Taste Radio that features Jake Bullock, who is the co-founder and CEO of Can, the micro-dosed social tonic brand. Jake and his co-founder, Luke Anderson, won the competition in 2019, New Beverage Showdown 17, summer 2019. And he talks about how the competition, New Beverage Showdown, quote, set the trajectory for the company. I think, you know, coming to BevNet Live as an early stage entrepreneur also gives you the opportunity to meet people that you really need to meet in this industry, who can answer the questions that you've had since day one about ingredients, about packaging, about distribution.

6:00We have experts aplenty, service suppliers, ingredient suppliers, all these folks who can help you get your brand to the next level, get your products ready, not just for market, but ready for prime time. And they'll all be there at BevNet Live summer 2023. One company that's loaded with such experts is AFS, Applied Food Sciences, the presenter of this episode of Taste Radio. AFS is the leader in innovation for functional organic ingredients in the natural products industry and is built on the belief that quality is transparent from seed to label through organic farming, ethical sourcing and sustainability.

6:37Learn a lot more about Applied Food Sciences at AppliedFoods.com. You can also learn more about them and meet them at BevNet Live because they will be there ready to talk to you. Bring them your hardest questions. They have the answers. They really do. Yeah. I mean, those guys, I mean, they can answer almost any question. And it's not just even limited to ingredients. They have such a good understanding of the beverage industry that they can advise on, well, any aspect of a beverage brand or company. If they don't know the answer, they will know who knows it. I hear they also like to buy people, you know, a Negroni or a cocktail.

7:11Or so I've heard from Ray and Adam Stern who don't invite me to their gatherings. Oh, goodness. We've, you know, from time to time invited you and you've just been busy. I'm still waiting for my invite to another round of Lugers. I've been invited to one of those gatherings and it was awesome. We have a nice time. Yes. I'm surprised no one's mentioned my cap, my baseball cap. What are you in high definition today? Yeah, what is that? I can't see it. What is that cap? It's a black cap. It's not my typical Pops whiskey. Is it Millwall, Ray? No, it's not Millwall. I don't even know. I found this cap.

7:48John, nobody is going to wear Millwall. No, don't wear Millwall. I mean, in Newton, you'd be okay. I'm just saying. I found this cap in the office. It has a gold logo. I think it says, it doesn't say AFS. I know that for sure, but it's something like that. And how old centers you drink? Oh, for crying out loud. I don't know. Anyway. Did you forget your hat today, Ray? You just picked up anything you could find? When I wanted to wear something a little different. Wait, you're repping a brand. You have no idea what it is. No. Not right now. You have a taste radio hat at least. I should actually.

8:17That's a good point. We don't have any taste radio hats. We'll get those. We'll get you a blue blazer too with a little pack on them. Blue shirts. I got to be on brand even in the studio. I love it. We could have at least put a sticker on your hat. Well, the reason I wanted to change it up is because I've been watching all these awesome social videos that we've been putting on Instagram. And I'm the only one who's literally wearing the exact same thing every single time. You're consistent. I'm consistent. But I think that's also why Amanda Smarlinski, who's our social marketing manager, I think that she has an even better title than that.

8:47Doesn't she, Jackie? She's a product marketing associate. Product marketing associate. I think that's why she doesn't use me as like the cover for each of these videos. Because it just looks like... Blue shirt, guys. Blue shirt, blue shirt. Every single one is the same. Wall of blue shirts on the Taste Radio account. But does anyone post to the wall anymore? Personally, I haven't in a long time. Post to the wall? The Instagram wall. What does that mean? Oh, the wall, the feed. He means the feed. The Facebook wall. He means posts. Yeah, right. But the Facebook wall was a thing, right? Yeah, it wasn't crazy.

9:20No one says that anymore. No one uses that. Probably your grandma says that, you know? No offense. Sorry, anyone. Brady, you remember umbrellas? Remember when umbrellas were invented? What do they call umbrellas in the UK? Bollies? Umbrellas? Yeah. Well, in the UK, speaking of the UK, John Craven, you just got back. Oh, yeah, I did. Thanks for finding me. London, England. More than just London. You were all over. Yeah, you were all over. I just went to Edinburgh, Scotland, and London. Is that all over? I don't know. I mean, that's good enough for one week. Yes. I don't know. I just sat on a train for a couple hours, looked out the window.

9:55You've already talked a lot about your travels to London. What was Edinburgh like? Chill. Yeah? Yeah. I don't know. It's like there's lots of old stuff. They got a castle. I don't know. What else? Oh, they're really, they take claim for Harry Potter having started there. Okay. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but. I didn't realize J.K. Rowling was Scottish. She's not. But it was based in Scotland? Based there? No, I think she lived there for a little while when she wrote some of the books or something. I'm not a huge Harry Potter fan. My kids dragged me to some Harry Potter stores and we saw a few things that were Harry Potter-esque there.

10:34But I was more interested in the Scotch, right? Okay. Yeah. It just comes out of the faucet there. Nice single malt. Just showering in scotch. I've just got one handle. Here we have the hot and the cold. I've got the 8-year and the 12-year. It's great. Well, on Slack yesterday, John mentioned that he was going to head home early because of jet lag. But it seems... It's the scotch. Perhaps it was the scotch. Perhaps it was the... I literally had one. In all seriousness, I had two little tasters of scotch. I went into, looked up like what the best store to buy scotch was in Edinburgh. And I ended up in this place.

11:14And, you know, I'm like looking around for something like I can't just get at the liquor store at home. There is some weird stuff. But anyway, you know, they give you like little tasters in the store, which was kind of dangerous for like 3 o 'clock in the afternoon. But that's the only scotch I had. I don't know. No offense to scotch, but like I didn't go to like the sort of northern part of the country where you can go to like distilleries. I'm just in a shop. So there's kind of no benefit to buying scotch in a shop there versus shop here. Because it's not like fresh scotch is better, right? You didn't take the Ron Swanson tour to Lagavulin?

11:49I mean, I'd love to do that. I'm just impressed that you said fresh scotch. I feel like that's a tongue twister right there. It is. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so, yeah, I did not drink a lot of scotch. Okay. But I was a little tired. Then I went to this terrible, terrible place on the way home. It's called JFK Airport. spent five hours there that place sucks oh dude it's the worst five hours i hate that place it sucks isn't there that cool lounge there now though at jfk i mean in terminal five they literally have birds flying around and everyone is angry so i've been to i went to laguardia recently laguardia is much nicer than it had well that's just got a that got a major makeover yeah not uh been there in a long time but sounds like jfk is due if you didn't have global entry by the way the wait time to get through customs at JFK said 278 minutes oh my gosh yeah good times yeah four and a half hours that's not I would just yeah no no okay well glad you got enough scotch in you yes you know I uh I feel like I didn't get enough beverages in me at the BevNet meetup which we had here a couple weeks ago but I do want to talk about some of the amazing brands and founders that we met.

13:00I'm going to try right now a brand called Bitter Love. That's yummy. This is described as a bitter blend of gentian root, dandelion root, angelica root. Is that how you pronounce it? I'd say so. Turmeric, ginger, and ashwagandha. And they have a sister brand too called Sonder. Sonder? Which is the one I have in my hand. Okay. I love the name Bitter Love. I feel like that really expresses everything that you want to get out of a modern beverage brand. I like bitter things. If you say so. And I like things that make me feel happy. Love. I prefer adaptogens, but you know, hey. How bitter is it? It's not as bitter as I thought it was going to be.

13:40It comes later. When I drank that one, I had the same idea about that particular flavor. And the more you drink it, the more bitter it gets. Okay. I can start to feel that. I had that stuff at the meetup. It was quite tasty. That's right up my alley. That stuff is good. And I wouldn't judge how bitter... Well, the other two SKUs are a little more bitter than that one, but that one's tasty. No, this is delicious. I am a huge fan already. I feel like this is something where I could just have this on its own. I could have this with a sandwich for lunch. I could have this as an evening beverage. I feel like this is pretty versatile.

14:17And maybe I'm just a beverage nerd and this appeals to me. but I think it says it's a pretty nice runway. It's nice. And the sister brand Sonder, I think we've talked about it before. This one's the orange cream. S-O-N-D-E-R. Drink Sonder on Instagram. Orange vanilla, Jackie's favorite, Lion's Mane, maple syrup and bubbles, 40 calories, or this one's 60 calories actually. They also have a cola. It's nice, nice prebiotic soda. I got this at the meetup. Not a small brand anymore. Athletic Brewing. Athletic. This is a lemon radler from their pilot program. Nice. Pretty tasty. Kind of tastes. A non-alk radler.

14:56Interesting. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of soda-like. I'm not going to lie, but it's pretty crushable. I have no idea how many calories are in this or anything, but it doesn't seem to be on the can, so. Oh, sample. Yeah. Interesting. So we'll go with it. Tasty. I have my hand, a brand that was also at the meetup, and it's called Swing Tea. It's an iced tea drink made with green tea and also made with apple sugar. That stuff's good. I don't know what apple sugar is. Apple sugar is next-gen sweetener. Pretty good stuff. Well, in the ingredients, it says filtered water, apple juice concentrate, which I assume is the apple sugar.

15:31That it is. Natural flavor, decaffeinated green tea. Decaffeinated green tea. Nice. Citric acid or organic Panex ginseng extract. Let's give this to the world. Apple sugar is having a moment in Europe. It just hasn't hit here yet. but there might be a drink coming out with it might be a drink coming out with it hmm well there is one right there swing tea but there might be another one there might be a big one rumor rumor has it rumor has it can't confirm i'm not getting a ton of the tea flavor i'm getting some of the apple sugar which also almost tastes like honey in this yes it does taste a lot like honey it might be the fact that i drank that or i sipped it right after i drank the bitter love which is messing with my palate.

16:11So who knows? I did not see a brand called Maka at the meetup, but Maka is actually based in Virginia, or at least manufactured in Virginia. M-A-K-A, not Mike. Yeah, with two long lines over the A's. Is it Maykay? No. And I asked Brian Hill, who's the founder and CEO who appeared on Elevator Talk a couple episodes back, if it was Maykay. And it's not, it's Maka. And Maka is a brand of wheatgrass superfood beverages. Now, when you think of wheatgrass, what's the first thing you think of? Not tasty, right? No, right. Yeah. Speak for yourself. Really? But I asked Brian about this and he's like, look, people love our beverage and we're doing pretty well because we are positioned as an energy slash functional kind of beverage.

16:54But yeah, people need to realize that this is going to taste great. And this is my first sip of Maka. This is their Hibiscus Passion Fruit variety. Let's see if Brian was telling the truth here. That is outstanding. That's a really good tasting beverage. Yeah. Speaking of meetups, they're actually at our San Diego meetup. So definitely try to also agree that it's really tasty and not what I was expecting, considering I have taken many wheatgrass shots and those make you pucker. I have avoided it because it says wheatgrass on it. So that's a mistake. Yeah, it's really good. It's made with 90 milligrams of caffeine for a 12 ounce can.

17:34There are four varieties, lemon, coconut, pineapple, and mango. Thanks to Brian's team who dropped off a whole bunch of samples earlier today. Can I try this? Does it need to lead with wheatgrass? Mango. I'll give the mango one. I'll take mango. Thank you. Mike's going down a rabbit hole here. Here we go. Yeah. While Mike's going down that rabbit hole, I want to call out a brand called Lost Art. Oh, I lost so much time. This is great. Oh, God. All right. Call out Lost Art. Okay, let's talk about Lost Art. Is that ghee? No, it's krautchi. Oh, sorry. Geez, I was way off. Now, Marie Lafontaine is the owner of Lost Art Cultured Foods.

18:12She was at the meetup as well. Lost Art was founded in 2015. They are makers of organic cultured veggies. The product I have in my hand right now is their krautchi. This is a blend of unique mixed veggies with toasted Indian spices. Lost Art Cultured Foods are made in Charlestown, not too far from here. charlestown mass that is i have not dipped into this i don't think i'm going to open this right now in the studio because that kimchi aroma might linger might shall we say that would be awesome but it was fantastic to meet marie she was so kind to leave us some samples and i'm so excited to try this product last time i was here and i don't know if you edited this out i promised i would bring these plant-based scallops which i have prepared for you guys now these are from a brand called Mind Blown.

19:00They looked browned. Yeah, you put some, you take them out of a little bag, you dry them off, you put this little like magic powder on them. Okay. I don't know what's in that. No ingredients. And then you cook them. We have already tested these to determine that they're safe. John Kenna has had many of them. He says they're good. He has iron consequences. They're good. They're good. Jackie says they're good. I can't do that. Somebody's got a crown one. With those little sticks, because I feel like I'm at a cocktail party from 1983. Oh, you're an expo basement here. Okay, here we go. The texture is pretty good.

19:36I don't know if I'm going to be able to make it over there. You want me to throw you one? No. Just catch it in your mouth. All right, that is weird. I like it. I think they need to be warm for us, too. Yeah, they definitely need to be warm. They definitely taste like scallops. Yeah, it's kind of weird. I mean, it's weird that I'm going for another one. They mimic the flavor of scallops. They're pretty good. It's like the first one you're skeptical of, and then you just keep eating them. You just don't realize. that they're all gone. You guys, this does not suck. These are good. Yeah, and they cook just like a scallop.

20:03So you literally just can pan fry them and they're really tasty. They're great like alternative for people that just don't eat seafood. All right. So Country Archer Fuego smoked sausages, nine grams of protein, zero grams of sugar. Country Archer, one of my favorite meat sticks. I'm going in. Good? Oh yeah, DNS. These are great. Spicy? Fuego? They are spicy. What I would call an amusing kick, but a lot of people would just be like, this is fire. It's good. We got this one too, Zero Sugar, which, are there normally, is there normally sugar in a meat stick? There's sugar in a lot of jerky and a lot of meat sticks, and they've prided themselves on being no sugar.

20:49I like it. Yeah. They have the full flavor. I mean, like these are legit. This is good. You should try it. Eh, I'm okay. I don't really do meat. I know you're not a meat stick guy. Meat stick. You like this one? Yeah, I have something less meaty. I have spudsy sweet potato scoops. Nice. That is a lot less meaty than this, which is the opposite. Yeah, meaty, treasy. These might be a little lighter. But it says classic cheddar and sour cream and onion. And I have dove into the sour cream and onion already. Nice and crunchy, but let's see. Those are epic. Yeah, I mean, everyone loves a good scoop.

21:22You know, you can put a lot of dip on this. Yeah, like what's the right dip for that thing? Do you remember when Ashley Rogers was on stage at Pitch Slam and she was talking about like how she was going to dominate the supermarket with her little spud army? We were all like, that's ambitious. And look what she's doing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, maybe hummus would be nice or like some sour cream based dip would be good because it's sour cream and onion. How about some Ithaca hummus? That'd be amazing. Yeah, that'd be good. Or the Ithaca salsa. You can hear that crunch. Mm-hmm. Jackie's crunching I'm snapping on sausages over here

22:04Alright, let's get to our featured interview For this episode As I mentioned at the top of the show David Garcia Aguirre is the Vice President of Operations And Master Miller For Corto Olive A super premium brand of extra virgin olive oil That emphasizes freshness From harvest to plate Admired by chefs for its commitment To high quality standards Corto is part of a new generation of olive oil companies that are attempting to recast the ingredient from an overlooked kitchen staple to one revered for its utility in creating delicious and healthy meals. I spoke with David about how Corto has aligned its business units to consistently produce and package fresh olive oil and how the company communicates the value of its process and standards to its customers.

22:53Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio right now. I'm honored to be sitting down with David Garcia Aguirre, the Vice President of Operations and Master Miller for Corte Olive. David, great to see you. Yeah, thank you, Ray. I really appreciate the time. How did you get into this business? I'm curious about that. How does one become a Master Miller of premium olive oil? Purely by accident. I don't think anyone, you know, at least here in the U.S., not many of us grow up thinking I'm going to be a Miller someday. I studied philosophy in college at UC Santa Cruz. I was trying to break into the professional ranks of soccer at the time.

23:31I actually did sign a contract. So technically, I guess I would be a professional, but I did get injured and wanted to do something totally different. So I actually had always done metalworking, fabrication and things like that kind of on the side and decided to start my own shop in Davis, California. and one day my neighbor came over and asked me if I wanted to build a mobile olive oil processing plant and that was in 2009. And so I built that and we ran that for four years and then Cordo hired me in 2013. That's such an amazing story actually. It may not sound like it to you but it makes it clear that you can really create any business in America, right?

24:13I mean, you can create your own income, you can have a sustainable, reliable business if you're doing something that one, you're skilled at, and two, that you love. And it sounds like both were the case in your career, at least to this point. To be quite frank, I was really bad at running my own business when I had my shop. I would underbid everything and realize that I had a lot to learn. And this came along at a good time when I decided that I would make this my business and then I would do art on the side for fun. And it's worked out really well. So you're an expert, and I don't think that's not hyperbole.

24:51You're an expert at olive processing, using olives to make olive oil. But growing olives is another huge part of what you do, Korto that is. Talk about the different parts of the company and how they all intersect to create this high-quality product. Sure. And I'd like us to keep the framework of olives are a fruit. Because like I said, that is the right way to think about fresh, high quality olive oil. Olives are a fruit. And like any fruit, there's an optimal time to harvest that fruit. So, you know, Cordo, we have a team that's focused research and boots on the ground kind of field team that is working with our own acreage, our family acreage, and any acreage that anyone's growing with for us.

25:41and they're out there every day, you know, ensuring the quality of the fruits there, making sure we get a good fruit set, which is going to determine our yields. But most importantly, they're the ones that say, okay, the fruit's ready, let's go. And, you know, our entire harvest happens in about 40 days, 24 seven. And it's because that window, when you can harvest olives to make ultra premium oil is so short. And so we have to mobilize everything in that very short window. So our grower team, they are, you know, people always ask me what my job is as a master miller. And the reality is it's not that hard.