Saving The Best For Last... Our Recap Of Expo East 2023

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 colleagues for this episode, John Craven, Melissa Traverse, and Mike Schneider. We are here at the final Expo East of all time here in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Convention Center, Expo East 2023. We hardly knew thee. We're going out with a bang. I hope so. Yeah. Past two days have been pretty fruitful in terms of all the cool things that we've been seeing, all the great brands, all the new products. I don't know. I mean, I feel like I'm going to miss this show.

0:46You know, this is the show that I've been to, I think, 11 times now. I don't know if it's that you don't know what you've got until it's gone, but I think I might also miss it. Who sang that song? Cinderella. Cinderella, yes. No, you don't know what you've got. Yeah, that song. That is the song. No, that's not Cinderella. No, no, so there's a heavy metal band from like the 80s called Cinderella. I know, yes. That's not Cinderella. No. It goes, don't know what you got till it's gone. No, that's the other one. No. That's, um. It's, um, you don't know what you got till it's gone. That sounds very like Howdy Doody 1950s.

1:25No, it's not. It's like a 90s song. Unless it just took us to Captain Kangaroo, I think. Yeah. But anyway, I've been talking to people about the sun setting of Expo East and what's to come. And, you know, you can read all about it on BevNet and Nosh. But, you know, as for East Coast brands, I think this was an important show because you were talking to a lot of East Coast retailers and retail buyers, smaller independents who are looking to bring on products or new products and brands into their stores. But at the same time, you know, there is a high cost to these shows. There is a, you know, pretty significant investment you have to make for yourself and for your team to come out here.

1:59So I guess it's six of one and a half a dozen of the other if I'm being, you know, fair about the cost. I can appreciate that it's smaller than Expo West. So for folks like us who are trying to have as many conversations as possible, it's great for us. But I can also appreciate on the brand side that they're probably looking to speak with as many folks as possible. I think also, I mean, you know, it just seems like this whole Expo East ending thing, it's like, you know, Expo is kind of like a victim of its own success, right? I mean, Expo West became such like, you know, the Super Bowl, right?

2:32That I think this one just always really lived like, you know, distantly in its shadow. And for companies on the West Coast, like, it's harder to get to Philly or Baltimore compared to like getting to L.A. to go to Anaheim or whatever. and you know it seems like something we're at this point yeah it's probably good for a change you know maybe it'll make us like more interested in the summer fancy food show as a east coast show because i think the east coast definitely like needs kind of a show like this but you know we'll see i mean it was definitely a little weird that they announced it like the first day of the show it kind of felt like it took the wind out of the sails a little bit in terms of like people like treating this like a serious show that was at least my read on it what's the super bowl what's the super bowl i'm just kidding but i mean the one thing that we won't have to hear anymore is you know how when we talk about the premier league and john craven there's always that groan and there's like a collective groan from people here that were at expo east again the one time we didn't see that was right after covid when it came back and everybody was super psyched to be here.

3:36And I feel like that's kind of come back in a way. And, but a lot of the conversations that I've had have been with people who are, who are new and haven't been to Expo East before. And they're sad because they're having great conversations, meeting people, and they're not really sure what to expect from Expo West yet, where, as Melissa said, the conversations are fast and furious. So when people look back, they're going to be like, oh, we didn't know what we had. Now it's gone. And so I'm going to miss the show and I'm going to miss, you know, just having a chance to come to Philly. I like Philly too.

4:10Philly is a great town. Some good food here. I ate at some good places last night and the prior night. Sorry, I didn't get you to send the invite to you guys. Yeah. Thanks for nothing, Ray. Sorry about that. No, I went to McDonald's, Ray. Thanks for leaving me out in the cold. Ellen Yin, who's a well-known restaurateur and chef in the city. I went to a restaurant Fork, and then went to a restaurant A Kitchen. That was on Wednesday and Thursday. I'm not as fancy. I went to a restaurant called Spork. Spork. But I also went to an amazing cocktail bar called Enswell, which was fantastic as well. They only serve Philadelphia-based spirits, wine, beer.

4:53Good stuff. Interesting. Yeah. I had the opportunity to go to a restaurant called Oloroso. It's tapas Spanish. And I had a chunk of eggplant that tasted just like a burnt marshmallow. Nice. Nice. So for those of you who did not imbibe on alcohol, I wonder if you had an opportunity to try a product that seemed to be the talk of the show, even though they didn't have a booth here. That was Ourobora's new Dry Guys olive oil martini made in collaboration with Graza, the extra virgin olive oil brand that is a cult hit or actually launched and became a cult hit. This is a pretty amazing product. It comes in this lime green can, as I mentioned.

5:37It's called Dry Guys. I talked to Paul Vogue, who's the co-founder and CEO of Ourobora, and he had mentioned that Dry Guys could become a subline for the brand. This is their first iteration. They're trying to see how it goes. They only made 5 ,000 cases of this. I was lucky to snag one. I know there's one in the office as well. Paul said that Ourobora has been used by a lot of folks as an alcohol alternative, as a product that people drink after 6 p.m. in place of a cocktail or beer or one. This is the strangest thing they've done since they threatened to do a taste radio flavor. We're still waiting for that.

6:11The green bean flavor. Yeah, we're still waiting for that. Green bean casserole, yeah. The green bean casserole was pretty weird, but also super tasty. This one, I mean, have you tried it yet? I have tried it, but I tried it like three months ago. I got a sneak peek. Remember when I was like teasing? Yeah, we got a secret vial. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Remember when I was teasing this? But, yeah, so an olive oil martini, it tastes very much like a sparkling water with the essence of martini more than it does a non-alc martini. It's interesting, like when we tried that, I didn't know that it was going for like an alternative.

6:42I just thought it was like a funky flavor. There's the can, Mike holding up to the iPhone camera here. We have a pretty amazing setup, by the way, in terms of how we're recording video and audio here. I think amazing is not the word I would use. Yeah, scrappy. It is scrappy. We're in the upstairs cafe at the Philadelphia Convention Center, which has become a great meeting place for lots of folks. Because for some reason, I've never seen this open. This is like a Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome sort of setup. It's weird. It's a fitting way to do our final Expo East. At the Overlook Cafe. Yes. We will never forget you.

7:17We're overlooking things with just no cafe to be found, right? Great job, Ouroboros and Graza. And I'm hoping that they continue to do more of these limited collabs, limited edition collabs. And, you know, seeing a food and a beverage brand do a collab, you don't see that very often. You really don't. I mean, is olive oil... Olive oil could be a beverage, sort of, right? No. You don't just drink grasa? No. You don't just do... John does. He drinks shots of olive oil on 123 every day. Hey, just squeeze a little. Right after the dull syrup. Oh, gosh. Mike's got blobs. I do. I have blobs here. So blobs is a new kind of gummy that triggered me initially because I was afraid of what might be in it.

7:59But they told me they call it a candy and not a gummy for that very reason. So this is a candy. It's two grams of sugar. They're pretty tasty. This one I have in my hand is passion fruit pineapple. There's also orange peach. I think there's another flavor or two as well, but these are pretty tasty. What's the sweetener in these? Allulose and sugar. Allulose. Tapioca syrup. There's like a sweetener packet in here. There's some monk fruit. There's turmeric for color. I like that they make sure to mention that it's turmeric for color and not for functional benefit. Yeah, not for flavor. Not for inflammation.

8:34Not for inflammation. A gummy for inflammation. Now that's a hit right there. Of course they have that out there somewhere, right? Gummies are supplement carriers, like THC, you know? What about tidbits? I don't know if you all had a chance to try those, but certainly the gummy trend continues with low sugar, very tasty gummies, and their packaging is adorable. Speaking of adorable and packaging and tasty gummies, Better Sours, of course. We got to meet up with the founders of Better Sours yesterday, and their new sticker is sour to the people. Sour seems to be a bit of a trend at the show right now.

9:11Yeah, I feel like we have seen more sour forward products and ones that are marketing themselves as sour. Even cranberries. The Patience brand is marketing cranberries as a sort of sour gummy as well and a few different flavors. It's not like a clever word right now. It's a word that people are looking for, I think. So they've just kind of brought it to the forefront. It's good to see for people who like sour. But for sure, with candy and confections, the overarching trend seems to be lower sugar, lower, lower sugar. I mean, these blobs, the first thing at the top of the package is two grams of sugar per bag.

9:45But as you mentioned, Mike, it has a sweetener, I guess, pack that includes allulose, fiber syrup. I didn't see anything else beyond that. but I think people are becoming a little bit more wary, consumers that is, of non-nutritive sweeteners and the taste profile is not necessarily something that people love as much. So it was interesting to talk to the founder of a brand called ChocXO, C-H-O-C-X-O. They make all different kinds of chocolate. Their tagline is simply better chocolate and at the top of this bag that I have which is their limited edition dark milk chocolate snaps peppermint and cookie Crunch.

10:24It says only four grams of sugar per piece. So I asked him, you know, what is your sweetener pack? He said, we only use sugar. The way we process the chocolate allows us to give a more sweet flavor, a better tasting experience than you would if you added, say, allulose or stevia or monk fruit. So pretty interesting stuff. Like I love this brand and I feel like this is the kind of trend. This is the kind of thing that more people want to see. And that's not knocking anyone who uses allulose or stevia. It just feels like this is more in line with consumers' expectations and demands for a lower sugar candy.

11:04You know what I like about that brand? The size. Almost every one of them is just a little bite, and the bite seems to be enough, so you can have it, feel pretty good about it, and then, you know, if you have another one later, not a big deal. I mean, I agree with what you're saying, Ray, but I think, you know, what's interesting with this and as evidenced by just our questioning of this, it's like you see only three grams of sugar, which is very similar to like the blobs, like same, you know, right at the top of the package and you're just looking around to figure out what the sweetener is. So it's like, if you're taking this approach of not adding anything else, like, like they really need to call it out.

11:40Well, that's a good point. I asked him about that at the show and he had said that they are updating their packaging to include no artificial sweeteners at the top of the pack and then also no sugar alcohols but i don't think many consumers know what sugar alcohols are i think they might well i mean i go ahead no i mean i i think it whether people know what it is or not it sounds kind of like a mouthful to say that you know like there just isn't yet someone hasn't figured out like a really clean, simple way to say that. So, you know, maybe they'll know no sugar alcohols. I mean, we've seen, I don't remember what beverage product it was that had like no stevia on it.

12:21Oh, yeah. But, yeah, I mean, I think it's kind of a weird thing that what they're trying to say is like we only use sugar, which is almost like doubling down on the use of sugar and would be bad. But they need to figure out a way to say that there's no artificial, whatever you want to call them, like no other sweeteners. Isn't that the awful catch-22 where you are doing something that consumers want, but still have to explain how you're making it? Ah, yes. See, I think that folks are aware of sugar alcohols because of the keto trend. So many products use sugar alcohols, and certainly there's some digestive issues that go along with those.

13:03Melissa, you've been walking the show floor since the Harvest Festival on Wednesday. I'm sure you've been talking to a lot of entrepreneurs as you usually do. Anything stand out in terms of new brands? Sure. So one of the brands that caught my eye was Chutney Punch. So the founder makes these products with a South Indian influence. They are powders that you sprinkle right on your food. So it's a spice mix, but it's not something that you cook with. you use it on a finished and cooked product. It almost to me seemed like a stand-in for something like a chili crunch where you have your food, you want a little flavor on it, and the flavors are fantastic.

13:47My favorite was the spicy peanut, but they use jaggery for a sweetener, which certainly is a traditional ingredient. There's tamarind, curry leaves in there, but it knocked my socks off. The one thing is that I think consumers need to understand that it's not something you use beforehand. It's something that you use afterwards. Because I think that's, that sort of is a convenience play. Yeah, I think we've been seeing this over and over in that people are introducing, founders that is, are introducing new and convenient ways to to cook ethnic foods. And, you know, I think trying to make, say, an Indian dish at home seems like a pretty complicated thing to do if you're relatively new to Indian cooking.

14:32But with Chutney Punch, I think it's, as you mentioned, it's almost like it doesn't need to be an Indian dish for you to appreciate it. You can put it on anything you want. You can put it on mashed potatoes, you can put it on steak, you can put it on all different kinds of things, and just enhance your food that way using familiar spices and flavors of Indian cuisine. So when you said chutney punch, I thought you were talking, I thought it was like a wine punch, like a beverage, because we did see a brand called Bali Good, a sparkling beverage that has Indian flavors as well. So I thought maybe this was a competitor to that, but it's not.

15:05Punches, you mean like a punch in the face. It sounds like it would be a great companion to something sprinkled with chutney punch. And may I say that I grabbed a few samples. They have those adorable samples that look like K-Cups. Oh, yes. Yeah. So I grabbed a few of those, and I'm very excited to roast broccoli and sprinkle some chutney punch on top. There you go. Yeah. Melissa, you always have the good ideas. You always have the good ideas on how to use these products. I just love food. Yes. You know? Yes. John Craven, what have you been tasting?

15:41um well mike mike was carrying all my my samples okay uh but these are the uh root tomato chips oh yeah yeah these were pretty interesting they have uh tomato chips onion chips uh i think there was a zucchini chip yeah uh really interesting stuff uh i remember seeing those at the fancy future the winter fancy food yeah i mean they're not they're just something i haven't had before but yeah the sort of dried tomato chip was pretty pretty interesting I'd definitely eat that again yeah did you guys get a chance to try recoup it's an electrolyte beverage I think it's targeting active women and it is super tasty great flavors there's some secret innovation coming out in the future too that we got to try so I that one was definitely worth trying if you haven't tried it.

16:33Speaking of hydration beverages, did the Plink folks find you to put in the dunk tank? They were looking for you for the dunk tank. I saw them at the WeStock party last night, but I escaped from the dunk tank. They asked if I would be in the dunk tank and I said, I Plink, so. We also got to sample these Daily Crunch dill pickle sprouted almonds, which apparently were talked about previously on Taste Radio is not having enough pickle flavor. There's a great pickle controversy. There was a pickle controversy. It seems like there's plenty of pickle flavor in this stuff now. They put, like, pickle warriors inside, or what did they call them?

17:11Pickle bits. Pickle bits. As they were being sampled, people were just like, they really enjoyed those, so they were just going for it. Some people were just picking those out because it's flat out in front of you. You can see, you know, you're not just reaching into a bag, so they're going for that part. So it seems like they might have a win there. The pickle police green-lighted the product. The pickle police. The pickle patrol was on it. Did anyone see Paul Stamets, the mushroom man? The mushroom man, the mushroom man. Yeah, he is a world-renowned mushroom expert, and he spent an hour talking about psilocybin mushrooms.

17:51How did Jackie not come to the show? I know, I know. No, it was a fantastic speech. Did you live cast for her? I really should have, shouldn't I? Yeah. What kind of friend are you? I should have at least gotten an autograph, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. And I was, I mean, what a treat to be able to see him speak at Expo East. We also got to catch up with the founders of Dalsy, who have a new secret SKU, I suppose. They're Pumpkin Spice Blondie, so you might know them as the ones who are trying to retake the word moist. They've got a pretty cool tagline. It's not on this one, but it's something about the delicious brownie with the dirty mouth.

18:31Also got to catch up with Founders of Paro and finally got a sample that I can take home and try because these went so fast when they hit the office. I love the branding. And did you get a chance to check out Happy Wolf? So Happy Wolf is a brand of kids' bars. It's a kid-sized bar, but I think the flavor seems to be good for kids. but I would eat these too. Like it's a little 80 calorie bite so big enough for a kid to have one and feel like they don't need another one. But you know you could have one before say you know you go for a run and maybe one after too and feel pretty good. The interesting thing about these is that the branding is juvenile but I don't feel like you'd outgrow it.

19:13It makes you feel like a kid again even if you're an adult. Yeah so maybe it's got a chance. A couple of products that also caught my eye included Absurd Snacks. They have new packaging and an adorable peekaboo window. Certainly know that buyers, especially Whole Foods buyers, are always looking for that peekaboo window so you can see the product inside. And I think they did such a great job making it look adorable. And I don't know if anyone tried Must Love, the Frosted Animal Cookies and Graham Crackers, but if those had been around when my kids were younger, I would have stocked up on them, but now I'll just buy them and keep them all and eat them all myself.

19:51They're delicious. Speaking of adorable, did anyone get to try Treehouse Naturals pecan milk? So I saw this in the one of the new product areas of the show and their packaging is fantastic. It's hard to describe because it's very minimalist with the exception of the person, I guess the character in the middle of the cans one is I believe balancing on a rock and then the other one is sort of doing a handstand and the rock is not a rock it's actually a pecan and it's all of this interesting caricature it reminds me of this old Nickelodeon show called Special Delivery does anyone remember that no negative no of course Mike remembers yeah but uh interesting stuff and And you don't see too many pecan milks out there.

20:36There's this pecan at PKN. It's the only one I can think of. But Treehouse Naturals. I think Malk had one too. Malk did have one. But these are packaged in 7.5-ounce cans. They're obviously dairy-free. I talked to the founders, and they said the brands have run around for a bit, but they've restaged it in the single-serve offerings, and they're looking to expand distribution in the coming months. It gives me some of the minimalist vibes of minor figures, but certainly it is its own branding. Definitely. Another brand that I loved and I'm shocked that I hadn't seen before is Baba's. And we met the folks from Baba's at the Mina CPG event or meetup hosted at the Ziba Foods booth.

21:20That was so great to see everyone there. But Baba's, again, is a brand I wasn't familiar with. They're based in Minnesota. They describe themselves as a modern Middle Eastern food brand. They have all kinds of hummus varieties. They have a zesty za 'atar, a truffle, a sriracha, a garlicky, a red pepper. But the thing I was really blown away by is their pita puffs. These little fluffy, these little, I'll just describe it because I'm reading on the website. There's these mini puffy pita pillows described as fluffy and soft and made for their creamy, dreamy dips. I love speaking with the founders and their branding is outstanding.

21:58It's really, really stunning. The other interesting thing about Baba's is they operate a restaurant in Minneapolis. I think it's in Minneapolis. It might be somewhere else in Minnesota. So bear with me on that. But they have an area of the restaurant where they promote all kinds of other MENA-based brands or MENA-inspired brands. And it looks like a pop-up grocer it looks like a mini pop-up grocer in the restaurant it's amazing so check out their website you can see how much much more about it love babas.com to our millions of fans in saint paul apologize on behalf of ray can we talk about the mina meetup in that delightful charcuterie box that the maza i mean come on oh my god that is the cutest thing i've ever seen in terms of just They walked up to us in their like military pilot outfits with big sis and little sis on the.

22:52The best. It was the best. On the sleeves. They made these patches and they were just like decked out and they hand us these boxes. And I'm like, what's this? Because no one's ever handed me a charcuterie box that I've made up before. First. First and hopefully not last. There was brilliant chutney inside, crackers, manchego cheese and dried apricots, a little cookie. the pistachio cookie so good good did you dip it no i didn't dip it but i should have i just ate it i dipped it was it good yes um and also ziba foods had a little nut mix their mulberries it was in there they get me every time it was inside the box so good those were really good that was a super fun meetup looking forward to the next mina meetup it's always just a blast a blast did you also get to try ya ohaka oh my gosh a line of mole sauces if you didn't get to try that so good so good they were explaining to me what makes mole authentic and i was looking at the ingredients and and you know there's a lot of ingredients that go into mole but when you read them off it's just all ingredients that you like each time you read an ingredient the next one just your eyes go bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and i think it's called the chili hawk what I don't know how to say it, but that's the important pepper.

24:09It's in there and the mole is fantastic. I'm a big doctor upper of sauces that come prepackaged, but that is something I wouldn't touch. Your new nickname is Dr. Upper. Dr. Upper. Hey, Doc. I want to be Dr. Upper. Dr. Upper. I don't know if that means what we think it means. I'll go with it. It's fine. Another thing that was great to hear on the floor from people, and Melissa, you probably won't toot your own horn, but you should, is that people are loving Community Call. You're getting a lot of great feedback. Isn't it cool to have people walk, your audience just walk up to you and go, oh, I love this, and can we do this?

24:49I mean, I'm not a big horn tutor, but it was really, I mean, I was shocked, to be honest. It was such a delight and a surprise. and I mean until you really get to see people in person it's hard to know how things are being received but sounds like we need to do more script flips people like the script flip can I tell you I found I think five more script flips that we need to do now so many the good news is that if you love if you like community call now you're going to love it because we're going to release Turning it into a podcast. We harmonize that. Podcast. And also on Community Call, please do tune in on Tuesday at 1 p.m.

25:34Eastern. We've got Taja Dockendorf of Pulp and Wire and Casey Harshman of Fruition talking about their favorite packaging designs of Expo E. So definitely tune in and let us know what your favorites were as well. So everybody should tune in and toot their own horns. So the interactive video community call is still going to live on. And what we're doing is we're going to add a little banter to it and release it as a podcast for those of you who missed out on the original showing. Exactly right. So if you're driving, you don't have time to watch a video, you can catch it on the flip side. That brings us to the end of this episode of Taste Radio.

26:12Thank you so much for listening. Taste Radio is a production of BevNet.com Incorporated. Our audio engineer for Taste Radio is Joe Cratchy. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt. And our video editor is Ryan Galang. Our social marketing manager is Amanda Smirlinski. And our designer is Amanda Huang. Just a reminder, if you like what you hear on Taste Radio, please share the podcast with friends and colleagues. And of course, we would love it if you could review us on the Apple Podcasts app or your listening platform of choice. check us out on instagram our handle is bevnet taste radio as always for questions comments ideas for future podcasts please send us an email to ask at taste radio.com on behalf of the entire taste radio team thank you for listening and we'll talk to you next time