Our First Round Of Faves From A Fabulous Expo West 2024

0:10Hello friends and thanks for tuning in to taste radio the number one podcast for anyone building the business in food and 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. We are recording live. Well, not really live, but on location in Anaheim, California. Yes, we're together in person with Jackie. I know. I ran into so many people and they're like, wait, you're not on the East Coast? That is like some crazy magic. They never knew. That is the magic of Joe Cratchy and crew. Yes. Our audio engineer.

0:45Joe is also in the house well outside because we're outside by the pool he's on the couch we are we're in Anaheim, California for Expo West 2024 we're at the BevNet House which is located about a half mile from the convention center there is a pool back here that's fun I don't know if anyone's taking a swim yet yeah there's some leaves in the pool no one clean it doesn't look very clean it doesn't look like the John how come you didn't clean the pool before we came sorry Ray you know it's just the little things it's the little things busy making your steak and eggs I did not have steak and eggs this morning Nice.

1:15I didn't have any food this morning. What? We had Aji this morning. What's Aji? It's Lansa. What's Lansa? Just delicious. It's just, it's hard to describe how delicious it is. It's basically, if you've had shakshuka, you've had a similar taste to Aji. Kind of like a tomato spread. Yeah, tomato spread. It's amazing. Yeah, really good. There's a spicy version. There's a mild version. We put it on eggs. You can put it on anything, really. Did you buy it or was it from the show? We got it from the show. Nice. Mm-hmm. Nice. We don't buy food. It must have been really good because Mike is kind of slouching.

1:47He's kind of like leaning back. It's so good. I'm just like chill now. Feeling good on Friday. Friday of Expo West. We are recording on technically the third day of Expo West. Wednesday is when the show started. And day three promises to be another action-packed adventure. I don't think, I can't recall seeing more people at Expo West than this year. And I can't recall seeing more exciting products and brands. Like I have had a ton of fun meeting, eating, and drinking all the amazing people. Well, I'm not eating and drinking people. Don't eat the people, right? But I've had, you know what I'm saying?

2:21I've had a ton of fun at this show. Stay away from Ray. Yeah, stay away from me. You might be able to. Watch out for my teeth. But no, Ray, to your point, the vibe has been extraordinary this year. I mean, I think people are back in full force. They, everyone wants to, you know, be close and network and talk. And there's just been so many. There's a lot of close talkers. Yeah, that's true. That is true. there's been and again don't get too close to ray but um there's been so many amazing new products from the backpack brands and to the ones that you know are are exhibiting just so many people just so inspired this year you just gave me a good idea by the way what's that right and you know i'm just saying this in jest but what if what if we had like a little jingle that we could play if people are just a little too close we play that old police song it's like an alarm so close to me.

3:06Don't stand, you know? Don't stand so close to me, you know? Yeah, I think that's a good idea. Did I sound exactly like Sting? Yeah, wow. That was a great job. I'm like a fake Jamaican accent. That's kind of what Sting sounds like, though. I'm sorry. Sting is amazing. Sting, if you're listening, I'm sorry, but anyway. Now, John, I mean, you know, this is like, what, your 20th Expo West at this point, and 85 ,000 people. Do you ever see the show turn into something like this? I mean, it's crazy. I haven't been to 20 yet, but somewhere up there. I don't know. Somewhere. But no, I mean, it's just progressively gotten bigger over the past decade.

3:39And I think, you know, now it's feels totally crazy like it did before COVID. So yeah, super busy. What I liked is that it felt like the early stage emerging brands, the ones who literally launched at the show had a good platform. It felt like they saw a lot of people they wanted to see, media, retailers, influencers, service and supplier folks. I talked to a lot of early stage folks, whether it was in the tent, the Fresh Ideas tent, or the startup CPG section, which was on level 300 of the convention center, or, you know, some of the events that we attended. And it just seemed like they were all really happy that they came.

4:12Sometimes I'm actually kind of wary of early stage brands and founders attending because it feels like they can get swallowed up. But if you can actually make, you know, two or three good contacts, if you can talk to a few people and just actually be present, it feels like there is some reward there. Yeah. And I feel like there was a lot of like early stage brands that were doing things creatively, like they were doing collabs and popping up at other booths, like Glownuts was at Taika for morning breakfast and coffee. And then was that brutal? Yeah. Leisure was at brutal. So they were partnering a lot and figuring out ways that they can drive traffic to wherever they were at the show, even if they weren't like exhibiting the full time.

4:47They did a pretty good job of, you know, having like happy hours or times that you knew that you could go and just find them at this booth too. And I think for some of these brands that are just trying to get started, getting just a taste of what it's like to exhibit is a good thing. And we saw that with Snackshot, the Snackshot event that always happens right before Expo West. And then also the startup CPG Alley Rally has some really great exhibiting opportunities for early stage brands too, where they can get some of the feedback that they need and figure out what's next for them. Because, you know, it's funny, you talk about brands like, I know we're going to talk about Cocada, right?

5:22You want to talk about Cocada's new product. And we were talking to one of the founders, Brianna, and she sounds so much different than she did when we met her initially at Nosh. when Kokoda won Nosh's Pitch Slam. So, you know, at that time, they were just so happy to be a brand. And now they talk about their margins and they talk about the products and they're talking about, you know, all the things that are going well and the things that aren't. Because it's a roller coaster ride. Every day is either an insane high or a lot of days are insane lows when you have a startup. And I think, I mean, there were more people this year who were out there on LinkedIn and stuff saying they weren't going and it's so expensive.

5:58And, you know, I think this is just, I don't know, it's a missed opportunity. You know, maybe you don't need to go big with some giant exhibit, but I mean, I think not going to this is kind of crazy, to be honest. You know who's done an amazing job of networking and being present seemingly everywhere at the show is Kartik from Dusra. He was everywhere. I mean, like, Dusra is the maker of Indian-inspired snacks. It's almost like a trail mix of Indian-type nuts or Indian-flavored nuts. I don't know if that's something I can say. Yeah, roasted peanuts. Yeah, there you go. I think, like, kind of like puffed rice.

6:30and then caramelized white chocolate. That's the curveball. That's the Deucer. It's almost like Chex Mix or Trail Mix. Yeah. But with an Indian spin. Exactly. With an Indian spin. Which Deucer is a spin ball in cricket. So that's why he named the brand. Right. Yeah. We were talking to him last night about just like the name and how he didn't want to call it a trail mix because it kind of cheapens it. Right. But it is similar to that experience because you are getting like sweet and savory and it's really, really tasty. I'm glad he didn't call it leg before wicket. Jeez. He was everywhere. Someone taking advantage of the opportunities that are presented to you.

7:01I also think one of the things that he does really well is he's found his people and he's also been standing their brands as well. So he's saying just as much as he wants you to try his brand, he wants you to try all the other brands. I think he really gets the industry, even though he's like, this is my first Expo West. And he's making the most of it in a way that, I don't know, it's like telling me yesterday, if you weren't doing Deuce Row, what are you going to do, work for Bebnet? Because he knows all the cool stuff. Yeah, he's like a champion for all other brands, even though he's just getting started.

7:29Yeah, we saw him at the Snackshot event. We saw him at the Startup CPG section. We saw him last night at the Alley Rally. Also at the Alley Rally, I was really impressed by a brand called Zinka Foods. That's X-I-N-C-K. Excuse me, C-A. X-I-N-C-A, yeah. Yeah, and they're a maker of authentic Salvadorian food. We tried their pupusas yesterday, which are essentially corn-based. I don't know how would you describe them. Like patties. It's like corn patties that are stuffed with like cheese and beans. Oh, my goodness. My mouth is watering just thinking about that. It was fantastic. Woman-led brand based in Virginia.

8:01And I mean, it's just definitely one of the standouts that I saw at the Alley Rail yesterday. Did you get to try Rooted Fair? I did not. Rooted Fair is a sesame butter. It almost looks like caviar. So you spread it on. It's super decadent, really tasty. We got to try that yesterday. I've been wanting to try that for a while because people rave about it and finally got to... It's like, don't meet your heroes. And there they were. mike you also mentioned kokata and they came out with a new product called kokata dunks i'm gonna get in trouble here but it's a better for you dunkaroos really yeah it is essentially like you have your spread on one side of your little snacking snack pack snack pack you have salty crunchy pretzels on the other side and they are retailing for a dollar 99 which is crazy i mean like for a better for you snack better for you dunkaroos jared and brianna from kokata were telling me that they are going wide.

8:51I'm blanking exactly. I believe they're going national and sprouts later this month and they have a whole bunch of other opportunities as well. I highly recommended that they talk to the folks from Foxtrot because when I spoke with Michael Avatola, who was the co-founder and CEO of Foxtrot a couple of years ago, I asked him, why do you have Dunkaroos in there? He's like, well, until we have like a better for you Dunkaroos that actually tastes as good as or better than, we're not, we're going to keep selling that. Sounds like an opportunity. You guys got to go talk to them. yeah it's really really good yeah i was talking to her and she was like yeah it was so fun just doing all the taste testing and seeing what pairs well with the cocada and that's the fun part i love when you two talk to each other because i feel like you're cut from the same cloth i mean they're college athletes i'm college athlete you know there's some bond there jared played college soccer i believe uh and brianna i believe volleyball volleyball yeah yeah and jared's also super into coffee now so we always talk about grinders they're they're just great people Just super nice people.

9:46You nerd out on grinders? Yeah. That's weird. Yeah. Very weird. Joe's even laughing. That's Joe in the background. So the Fresh Ideas tent on day one on Wednesday is the usual. You know, you get there and it's just a gigantic line of people because it's the first thing you see at the show. The longest line I've ever seen. Yeah. It's like a stampede. I got there early so I could get there, get in there early. John and I, like, we just go into the area ahead of the line. We just got sucked in. Oh, yeah. And the next thing you know, we're in the line. You found us. We found you guys. And then the next thing you know, we're in the line.

10:13But we also have some great networking in that line because everybody's in the same boat as you. They're waiting to get in and they just want to find someone to talk to. You always find great people. And it's the first thing you're doing at the show, too. So everyone's excited and amped. You're like looking for faces that you know in line. The first thing I tried, we did a short social video with Alex Jaffe, who is the founder of Alex, A-L-E-C-S Ice Cream, which is a maker of regenerative, verified and USDA organic certified ice cream. It uses A2 dairy. and they make these indulgent, delicious ice creams.

10:45They have nine new flavors and one of them that I tried just knocked me over. It was so darn good. It is a flavor of, well, it's a product that uses banana, chocolate, and date. And my goodness, I don't think I've tasted, I've never tasted an ice cream like that. It was so indulgent, so delicious. The bananas that you tasted tasted like, I don't know, you mash the bananas and you just put them in the ice cream yourself. that's how fresh it tasted and how realist how real it tasted that stuff is good we did the flight they had a flight of ice cream i was like it's all of it john's like it's a little early right just starting the day also loved a brand called humble they're maker of potato chips they're based out of canada it's organic potato chips these actually tasted like potato which is i know is kind of weird to say it almost feels like you sliced up potatoes yourself you put them in some oil and you put them in a bag and that's exactly what you're getting from humble they recently launched a new ketchup flavor.

11:41Ketchup is something I feel like you'd see like a convenience store, like a ketchup flavor, but you know, you got to stand out a little bit when it comes to better for you foods and you got to have flavors that people will enjoy. And like Ray's, you know, Ray's potato chips, they have a ketchup flavor, but I've never seen that with any other brands. Not popular in our part of the country. I don't know. I thought it was great. You want to talk about flavor? Yaa O 'Haka. I know you haven't been to the basement yet, but in Hall E, you have to go to Yaa O 'Haka and try their mole. They have three different kinds of mole, they're going to blow your mind.

12:09It's like you're invited into their home for lunch. And right next to that booth is the Harkin booth, which I know is one of your favorites. Oh my goodness. They have a new flavor too. Harkin is the maker of Better For You candy bars. They launched with two varieties, the gooey one and the crunchy one. Now they have the crispy one. The crispy one is one I had on the plane. They sent me some before the show. Oh, awesome. Yeah. I didn't share with anyone. I wouldn't. I feel like I keep talking to people and they're like, oh, I sent Ray samples. I know. No one ever sees them. Did you get it? Did you try it?

12:39Wait, who said that? There were a couple people, yeah. Well, anyway, so Harkin launched the crunchy one. And just like I talked about in a previous episode, there is no sacrifice whatsoever on flavor or texture. If you said that this was a full sugar, full calorie bar from like Mars, you know, like the Mars manufacturer. Not the planet. Yeah, not the planet. Thanks for clarifying, Ray. Alien candy. Oh, there we go. Never missed an opportunity to say, you didn't need clarification on that. You know, it's like I was barely paying attention and then I heard you speak and just, you know. Just heard Mars.

13:14Tip of the tongue right there. How about Hershey's? Yes. Not the usual bar. Not the usual. But anyway, yeah, you would not blink. You'd be like, yeah, this is a Hershey's or a Mars product. It is that good. It is that close to the original. It is, again, a zero sacrifice candy bar. Some might say better. Yeah. I can't say enough about this brand. There's so many Better For You candy brands all over the place at Expo S. I was just glad that Harkin came out because I thought, you know, Gigantic was the pinnacle at the time. And now there's two, which means maybe more come out and we start to see Better For You candy just take over.

13:47This is not to say that Gigantic isn't a phenomenal product too. I'm just happy that we're seeing more of these come tomorrow. This is like my dream. I've talked about Snickers and Better For You Snickers all the time. It's like, it's actually happening. I think it's just taking a time because talking to like Gigantic, the founder, Stu, was saying that just the formulation is so hard with candy bars, getting like the textures proper and all that stuff with real ingredients. So I think that's what's taken so long. But now that they've figured it out, I just hope that there's going to be more. And Stu in particular, he's meticulous about it.

14:17He continuously is reformulating to try to get it just perfect. And some of the things, you know, things we probably don't even notice some of them, but he's like, I want it to be less crumbly or I want it to be, you know, a little more mint here. But, you know, to your point, Jack, it definitely feels like Better For You Candy is having a moment. I can't even count the number of brands that I saw at the show that were doing Better For You Candy. And, like, in traditional forms. There was a Better For You Laffy Taffy. I'm blanking. I'm sorry if I'm forgetting the name of the brand. There were Better For You gummies all over the place.

14:44Starburst. Starburst. Bad Mouth. Everything. The strips that we talked about. Joyride strips. The gummy worms. All this stuff. It's like, and they're all clearly, at least as far as I can see it, intended to reach older consumers or at least consumers that are not kids. Certainly kids are going to be eating these products, but the price points are still at a place where, you know, you're not going to compete with say a Starburst, like a, you know, a pack of Starbursts. Another at the top of the pile, Yum Organic, their Skittles clone or their Skittles, Better Free Skittle. Oh my God. Amazing. Definitely.

15:19Hey Ray, how do you feel about Better Free Frosting? And what if it was blue? Let's wait until the end of our... No, I can't do in the middle. Because I want to blue tongue the entire recording. I already lost part of my voice at the Startup CPG event last night. So another thing that I saw in terms of sort of, I guess, I don't know, trends that maybe I'm trying to put together or seeing things at the event that I can potentially call a trend. I mean, obviously, Better For You Sodas is something that has been trending for a while. You know, Ollipop, Poppy, Culture Pop, those are the big three right now.

15:50But it feels like we're also seeing brands take a different tack and try to get into the space. I guess adjacent beverages as well. Hum Kombucha recently launched or teased at the show a line of tapache drinks, glass bottle tapache drinks. Yeah, back in glass too. Yes, in glass. I believe there are five varieties. The one I tried was actually blue colored. It was a tropical punch. Hey, look at you. How about that? Colored with spirulina. We also saw Nixie, the sparkling water brand, launch a zero sugar soda. It's sweetened with stevia. I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but we'll talk about it next week when I have.

16:26But I don't know. What else did you see, John? What else did I see? In terms of like that sort of better for you soda or sort of adjacent kind of categories. I don't know. Were there more? We met the founder of Pop Off, who is a better for you trying to launch out of Vancouver. She's in the midst of formulation, has an early run. It's pretty tasty. I saw a brand called Rockaway, which is a maker of a better for you soda. they infuse drinks with functional ingredients. The one I'm looking at is called Tidal Defense. It's a berry and hibiscus flavor. It has vitamin C. What is that? Australogus. Does anyone know what Australogus is?

16:59Sounds like a bacteria or something. It does sound like that or perhaps a mushroom and sea salt. Sounds like a Greek dictator. That's in a fair amount of products. Australogus? I don't know what it is, but... Oh, interesting. Well, if anyone knows what it is, please send us a note to ask at tasterader.com because we're clueless. Please educate us. We No, not at this time. Moss is a beverage that I really enjoy too. Sea moss based beverage. Again, I think, you know, sort of straddling that line between functional and refreshment. I mean, I think five, six years ago, this would have been the most funky functional product you could see on the market, but outstanding branding is beautiful to look at.

17:37It just feels like it has lifestyle just written all over it. And the products just taste amazing. They have really good tasting products. I think for something that's like so functional and people still don't really understand what it does, because there's so many things, so many benefits that goes with CMOS. Like it is just the branding that's so approachable and the flavor that drives it home. So it's just like a quality beverage that has function like tied to it. Yeah, I mean, and, you know, it does taste pretty awesome, which I think, you know, for a new ingredient, it's nice that they've actually focused on that instead of going like really heavy handed with the functional ingredient, which has also like a pretty big educational hurdle with it.

18:14So it's a new ingredient that if you saw it, it looks it looks a lot more like steel wool than an ingredient you'd want to drink. Yeah. And if I think we've talked about them in the past, but Jolly Moss, they were walking the show floor and they were backpacking and they had their sea moss pudding, which talking about, you know, making something tasty. It's so good. It's really, really good. And for sea moss, that's, that's impressive. Yeah. Really, really nice. saw the folks from better booch as well they bought live soda and are introducing a brand refresh for that line which looks amazing it totally has this sort of like 1973 vibe i think someone at the booth told me that it kind of felt like a retro basketball jersey like you know from like oh yeah definitely yeah it has that kind of look so they're launching that uh pretty soon they also they're refreshing the better brood brand too did you notice that not know yeah they're the they've a minor refresh they've just kicked up the typeface a bit and changed it and tweaked it a little bit to kind of go with the fact that they're rebranding the lively and then also ray what about their native the big bottle stuff oh my gosh it's what they describe as an alt wine i really like i loved it it's really really hard to do non-alc wine in my opinion this is sparkling though yeah but that's what I'm saying.

19:33Like the sparkling varieties that I've had are usually pretty good. This one, they knocked it out of the park with. Yeah, I thought so too. The rosé is something I would reach for. The rosé, you know, clone. And then they have a brute as well. A white. Super small batch. Trey said he hand-filled the bottles himself. So I'm not, I'm not sure that that's going to be for sale. Ashley Lockerbie drew the logo by hand in one try. So, I mean, it's just, it's really good. It looks, it looks super premium. Yeah, definitely pretty cool. Yeah. Can we talk about Pockets chocolates for a second? Yes, please.

20:04All right. I stumbled upon the booth. You had to ask? I didn't stumble upon it, but I came upon the booth with Mike and John just like drooling their tongues on the floor. And I'm like, what are you guys eating? And they were eating this new churro variety of their covered almonds, which is definitely one of the best things I've eaten at the show. Tastes like a churro. You better keep those away from me. It is unbelievably good. It's made with oat milk. They also have a strawberry variety that they launched at the show. And then, of course, we were eating the Black Sesame as well, because that's their classic.

20:34That one's amazing. They have matcha. They also teased or they showed us a collaboration they did with Blue Bottle, which was pretty cool. Then New Orleans Chicory. Excellent. Oh, wait, no, it isn't. Yeah. Well, it's the Nola Coffee. Yeah, it is the Nola Coffee. That's right. That's right. Blue Bottle's signature coffee. Quite good. Not too far from the Pockets Chocolates booth, I came upon a brand that I'd never heard of called Del Origin. They're a Colombian-based brand. The owner is just full of energy. She's a firecracker. she talked about the entire brand and did it in 15 seconds and it was just pretty amazing and then i tried some of their arepa bites which are corn-based bites and they're also filled with cheese and things like that i guess cheese and beans and so on just fantastic stuff and as you guys all know i'm not a big cheese person but these tasted amazing they're not i guess they're they're along the same lines as like a brazilian cheese bite but a little bit denser a little bit sweeter they also had some churros yeah they had gluten-free churros which are really good they They also had like a guava and cheese waffle.

21:31They were all really, really tasty. Guess it will waffle. Yeah. Monica stopped by there. She saw them. For sure. Did you try the new HIO? Did you see that the new Beverage Showdown champions, HIO, who are notoriously... That's stingy. What's the word I'm looking for? Jeez. No, no, it's not the word. It's like they're the cheapest people we know. No, no, that's not what I mean. They're notorious for not wanting to put out new SKUs. So many brands are consistently trying to find the next flavor. Yeah, they're super focused. but they finally found one that they're happy with, and it's Strawberry Guava.

22:02I really enjoyed going by the Core Shots booth, K-O-R. Yes! I was expecting to see just new flavors, new varieties of their shots, which are amazing, and really surprised and excited to see that they launched a new line of sports hydration beverages. These come in 16-ounce bottles, 16-ounce plastic bottles. They have four varieties. They have a Superfood Quench, which is blue, also blue from Spirulina, which I enjoyed, a tropical punch variety, a citrus refresh, and a hydrate, I'm sorry, an orange ginger. All of them were fantastic. I talked to the folks at the booth there. I didn't see Jordan, who's the founder.

22:39He was there, but... We did, yeah. Yeah. He was hiding from you. He was hiding from me because he knows I like to clear him out of the house and home over there. I think he likes us too. He's like, you guys want a shot? I think he just wants to get rid of us, actually. He's just like, please just take this and leave me alone. No, no, he's not like this. He's a very, very nice guy. But, you know, they were talking about the opportunity in sports drinks and all the traction that you're seeing for brands like Prime and Body Armor and, you know, obviously the legacy brands as well, but they're not for the natural consumer.

23:09I'll just leave it at that. And it seemed like they saw a hole and they sought to fill it. I believe, again, this is something that I have to give a disclaimer here. I believe they said they're going to Sprouts nationally soon. Speaking of Holsterville, last year seemed to be, you know, dumplings came onto the scene pretty strongly. So many dumplings. So many dumplings. So much bao's out there. So it's dumplings and bao. One of the ones that we tried was Omni. We also tried one called Sobo, which I think in spite of them being Tottenham fans, pretty good stuff. Yeah, really tasty. They had like four SKUs and all of them were plant-based and they had like plant-based meats.

23:47And it was funny on the packaging, they flipped the word upside down. So you knew that like it wasn't actually pork. That's how you know something isn't pork. Just got to turn the word upside down. I've never seen that before. Yeah, that was an interesting packaging approach. Also very tasty. Very Tottenham. What? Very Tottenham. We had a funny interaction there because I was asking them about their different varieties. And one of them was potato curry. And the founder was saying that that was the hardest sell. And I was like, you know, this would kill in the UK. And there was someone next to me who was like, can confirm.