Strategize Around Real, Familiar & Unique… Registers Will Ring

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 I'm with my co-host for this episode, John Craven, Jackie Brugliera, and Mike Schneider. In this episode, we're joined by Stephanie McGregor, the founder and CEO of Ringa, an innovative functional beverage brand crafted with moringa and apple cider vinegar. Love that brand. Good stuff. Tasty. Yeah. We saw Stephanie in December. I saw her recently, but we all saw her in December when she participated in the New Beverage Showdown.

0:49Yeah, we had a debriefing too after that. Not every contestant asks for one, but if you want one, you get one. Exactly. It's a good chat. Exactly. I was enjoying talking to Stephanie. I really had a good conversation. Y 'all will be able to hear it shortly. what I want to talk about right now is sort of a recommendation I have for folks when they go out to dinner. Oh no. I know this one. You've recommended this to me. I'm told people this. I'm triggered by this now. I said, don't do this. And I did this. You did. You ate muscles. I ate muscles. Yeah. I've always said, don't eat muscles. Anthony Bourdain talks about this, or I did talk about this back in the day.

1:30He's like, look, the last thing you want to eat on a dinner menu is mussels because they could be sitting out for a while you know how old they are and whatever so on sunday i went to the old chove anchovy shout out anchovies south end in boston here no not the chove yeah with that wrong with uh adam our dear friend adam stern and i called i called an audible because we were just gonna get the usual fries and you know maybe some sausage sausage is good there, by the way. Wait a minute. You looked at the menu and you heard yourself internally saying, don't do it right. Don't do it right. In the past, I'd had these muscles and I'd never had a problem.

2:10So I figured, okay, let me just give it a try. And they're these lemon garlic muscles that are incredible. So while I was eating them, great. Let me be clear, though. Let me be clear. This is really graphic. We need a warning on this episode. This is also, I want to be clear that I am not 100 % sure you know i'm not 100 sure that they came from the muscles it could have come from something else so no sin in anchovies it may not have happened you know at anchovies but in the past when i've eaten muscles i've had some problems so yesterday i was in bad bad shape so and yesterday being monday the day after how are you feeling now i'm feeling better much better yeah yesterday Yesterday, yesterday, fresh and clean.

2:54All right. We got to move on from this. Yesterday I was in rough shape, but yeah, as a result, I'm a little behind on things. So thanks for bearing with me, folks, because, yeah, that was not fun. We're always bearing with you. Yeah. Nothing new here. Well, what is going to be fun is our Taste Radio meetup, which is happening in Miami in 10 days. Folks in South Florida, folks in - That's February 11th. February 11th, that's correct. No one needs to count. Let's not do math. Yes, February 11th at Ampersand Studios in Miami. We're very, very excited to see the food and beverage community out there.

3:32First time for me in Miami. I've never been. Who knew? Never? Yeah, never been to Miami. Do you have any things that you really want to do while you're there? Go to the club? I think the only thing I really want to do is get a Cuban sandwich in Miami. In a strange turn of events, I'm choosing the restaurant. I've got the perfect place for you and I to get that Cuban. No muscles? No muscles. No muscles. We might get a little oxtail stew. Okay. Should we be awesome? Should we give people the link to sign up? Yes, of course. Tasteradio.com slash Miami. That's where you can RSVP. We highly encourage you to please RSVP because that's how we'll know you're coming, how much food we're going to need to order, et cetera, et cetera.

4:15For folks who are of the food and beverage founder community, please bring samples. We want to see, taste, eat all of your products. And everyone else there wants to as well. Exactly. All at once. Yeah. So John, Mike, and I will be there. Jackie is doing us a solid and holding down the fort. Because, you know, when John, Mike, and I, most importantly, when we're on the road, someone needs to run the show. That person is Jackie. Got to keep everything moving. And by the show, I mean the entire company, not just like Taste Radio. Okay, then. Yeah, we can't run the company from it. No, we can't. The technology is impossible.

4:54It's impossible. I've always said this before. No, I'm going to praise Jackie one more time. Like, seriously, Jackie, I don't know what we would do in this country. I seriously do not know because she does everything. Even though her title is Director of Marketing, she does everything around here. So thanks, Jackie. I think you figured it out. Yeah, okay. Let's not find out right now. Thanks to our partners for the event, New Water and Matriarch Wealth Management. Very excited to see those folks as well. So once again, if you haven't signed up and you are based in South Florida or going to be in the area, head to tasteradio.com slash Miami and RSVP.

5:35ASAP? ASAP. Yeah. So last week, in addition to being at the Fancy Food Show, we were at Naturally San Diego's pre-party for the UNFI show out there in San Diego. And they had a bunch of folks sampling and exhibiting. Well, exhibiting is kind of the wrong word, but, you know, showcasing their items out there. All mean the same thing, right? They do. They do. One of the brands I met out there is The Real Cereal Company. And this is a really cool brand. I first saw this at Erwan when we were out there in December, out in LA, that is. The product I saw is organic cornflakes, just corn and a touch of sea salt.

6:17It contains no sugar. It's non-GMO. It's USDA organic certified and certified gluten-free. If you look at the ingredient label, it says organic corn grits and sea salt. That's it. this comes in a pouch, an 8.4 ounce pouch. It just looks terrific. I mean, I love cornflakes. This really speaks to me. Of course, you know, if it's at Air One, you know, if it's organic and it's, you know, cornflakes. Are we going to open it up or what? Are we going to stare at this thing? Hold on. It's probably going to be a little on the pricier side. So this, I believe, retails for six or seven dollars. So it's not your Kellogg's Corn Flakes, but it's pretty, pretty good looking.

7:00And yes, we can open it now. Yeah, I've been actually eating those the last couple of days for breakfast because I maybe stole a couple bags and brought them home. And they are sealed. They were giving them out. Well, I kept going back for more and putting it in my little corner. She also didn't have to get on a plane. You learned from the best, Jackie. Got some quality looting. Hope you got some Chef's Life olive oil, too. Yes, I did. But yeah, that cereal is tasty. And when I was a kid, I honestly ate super basic cereal. I was like the weirdo. I only ate like Rice Krispies and unfrosted flakes.

7:34And this is for me. It's like quality and delicious. And they do have Rice Krisps too. Did you like your Corn Flakes to be like mad crispy? Or did you like to let them get a little soggy? A little soggy. Me too. I used to like, I used to wait until they get to that perfect level of soggy. and then just... Yeah, you gotta mix it all in the milk and just let it sit for a second. This is one thing I'll disagree with you all on. I mean, they're good both ways. You might as well just chug it from the bag, you know? You're not gonna let it soak. We just had a visit from sample Captain Colin. Oh, yeah, I had a virtual effing dude, we call him.

8:10Jeez. Wow. What? I didn't actually use the word. Can we also play, like, the breaking news sound when he enters the room? I don't know. What is the breaking news sound? That little, like, the old school, like... Okay, that's sad. Just dating ourselves here. Yes, our Gen Alpha and Gen Z listeners are not going to know. They're like, get out of here. So, yeah, so the Real Serial Company, our dear friend and colleague, Adrian DeLuca, wrote a story about this brand. It was published on January 2nd, 2025. You can read all about it on Nosh. But, yeah, I would say if you have an opportunity to check this brand out, definitely do so.

8:45And the one thing I want to... Sounds like we might not get a chance to check it out. I know, you can open it. Can we just open the damn thing here? Okay, I just want to say one other thing about this. This is, jeez, John just like ripped that mother open. Great, you're in rare form today. I don't know. So, you know, some of the expensive high-end$10 boxes of cereal that have been circulating and sold all over the United States for the past, you know, three, four, five years. And they're protein enhanced or they have some sort of functional benefit to them. And I'm thinking to myself, who's actually buying this stuff?

9:22And I really never met someone who's buying those brands. And I know you all know who I'm talking about. But this, on the other hand, this, you know, where it's just simple, straightforward, a return to simplicity, as it were. It is very simple. But that, you know, you know, are made with good ingredients, no crap, no fillers, no nothing. This is what I'm talking about. And I think this is what most people want more than the really complex. Oh, wow. heavily processed a little work of art yeah but heavily processed food cereal more specifically that's out there it's good it's solid i mean i wish the uh i don't know the branding feels a little generic to me i guess it's a throwback though it's no i mean i get a very nostalgic look i get what they're going for it does sort of match the simple and clean ingredients but i don't know i mean it's one of these brands where i'm sure as it is out there and gets traction it will feel more branded than it does on your sort of first look where it just feels again very very simple yeah it almost like stands out because of that right now because all the other cereal brands out there are doing a lot right yeah i mean what's also nice about this bag's like dense this is not like you know the box full of air like some of the mainstream cereal brand so i want tasty stuff the flakes to be slightly larger but other than that like baby flakes they're kind of baby flaky and but they're perfect though yeah the perfect crisp perfect crisp they they don't feel like they have like some weird coating on them like a preservative like no sugar or anything no sugar or no just you know how kellogg's cornflakes have the uh i don't know they have like some weird coating on them it's a preservative for sure Yeah.

11:11These don't have that. Well, that's a good thing, no? No, it's great. It also makes them so quicker, by the way. I'm going to test that. I don't want that. I want it to stay crispy. That's probably what that code is. But I don't really eat cereal anymore. I wasn't either until this popped up. There you go. It's a new reason to eat cereal. I mean, if it's not made by Jimmy Dean, I'm not eating it for breakfast. No, kidding. Kidding. Wow. Sorry, Jimmy Dean. You know, Jimmy Dean was actually, they were planning to have a huge presence at Nosh Live. Ah, just cancel that. You just got canceled. You and the company, essentially.

11:46Wow, thank you. Do you remember that movie Point Break, the original one? Yes, that's the only one. Okay. Well, no, there was the remake. No, we pretend that doesn't exist. There was a scene where they were in, I guess the movie was showing the inside of the house where the crazy surfers all lived. Uh-huh. and Tom Sizemore was like an undercover cop. Yeah, right. I remember that. I remember seeing this. John watched it yesterday. I watched it. It plays in my head over and over. He had a bowl of cereal, and he thought he was so cool, or they tried to make it seem like it was so cool, that he was actually using beer instead of milk for the cereal.

12:22Oh, God. Yeah. Wow. And I saw Mike with his can of live soda over there, and I was thinking, live soda, real cereal company. This could work. I mean, bring it. I'll do it. Please don't. No, live soda. I saw this in the cooler the other day. That looks another throwback kind of in terms of package design, label design. It looks amazing. This is a brand that was brought back to life. By our friends at Better Booch. Better Booch, yeah. So live soda, tell us all about Mike. What are you drinking there? I'm drinking a live soda fountain cola and it's organic living soda, gut supporting goodness. It's on brand with Better Booch.

13:00You know, it's kind of another one of those that's better for you. tastes great great bubbles yeah ashley and trey have done a great job just with the rebrand of this and also the product's phenomenal but the label looks like i don't know it's it looks like a 60s soda yeah it gives you jackie's drinking one too oh nice job yeah i'm drinking the luscious cream which is actually delicious that one's excellent so good so good yeah yeah and the the flavors are throwback. You get exactly what you're expecting. And, and then you look at the back and you're like, really only seven grams of sugar. Well, that's kind of where the prebiotic probiotic gut healthy soda.

13:41Right. Right. I know. But just the way it hits though, is it's like a full sugar soda. I guess what's also interesting about live soda is that it feels like it's a bit more of functional soda than what we're seeing from some of the other newer brands that are coming out there that are trying to, it seems like, move away from that type of positioning. And this cola is really good, too. It's hard to do cola. I wouldn't say it's like the classic Coke or Pepsi flavor, but it's pretty close. Yeah, it is definitely close. Yeah. Well, kudos to the team at Better Booch for resurrecting live soda, which was always a good brand.

14:18Resurrecting and rebranding. And yes, always a good brand, but they've made it, I think, even brought it under their wing, you know, it wasn't quite dead. They used to make kombucha, right? They still do. Better booch. They still do. Yeah, still do. Yeah. And I mean, I think it makes sense. Yeah, I saw better booch in my local stop and shop. I don't typically shop at stop and shop, but every so often I have to pop in there and I saw better booch in there. Are they still doing cha? They have cha too. I don't know. You'll have to ask the team. We'll have to catch up with them. Yeah. You guys have just copious amounts of new products.

14:51We do. I have one that was literally, I just opened the box. I got a care package from Kartik, so. It was just sent to me. Talk about another brand that was resurrected. Slice. Again? Yes. Not again. No, this is again. No, it's not again. So Slice, so Suja, the brand of cold-pressed juices and shots, resurrected Slice and resurrected it as a healthy soda brand. Of course. Yes. So these come in several varieties. I have an orange soda. There's a cola. Mike has a strawberry. Well, I mean, orange Slice was sort of like a classic flavor. Orange slice was the classic flavor. I mean, it tastes like orange soda.

15:28I don't know. I don't remember what slice tastes like. These now have probiotics and prebiotics. They only contain five grams of sugar. It looks like the old slice branding. It looks like the old slice logo and whatnot. Yeah. But it's described as healthy soda. Yeah. 40 calories. I mean, I don't know. Tastes good. Live soda. Living soda. Slice. Healthy soda. Now, are they going to get in trouble for calling it healthy soda? I wouldn't call it that. That's a good question. I don't know if they should. I'm not sure if that. I don't know if... Okay, by get in trouble, you mean like a class action lawsuit sort of thing?

16:00I don't know. Well, they must have talked to their lawyers about this. Who knows? Who knows? Always talk to your lawyers. Yes. John talks to our lawyers three times a day. He's like, geez, okay, that is not true at all. You have to make that very clear. That's not true at all. And then Ray talked about eating mussels, and it was very graphic. yeah well good job uh see what you're bringing back slice let's see how this goes and uh hey if there's a lawsuit about healthy soda don't say I didn't tell you so can I throw up some non-beverage products here did you say throw up I did but that's not what I meant oh triggering triggering I'm going back there one more word on the slice before you do that please John the strawberry is very very strawberry good supposed to be it's kind of how strawberry drinks always are yeah I've got god how do you say this Is it sauce?

16:55Salad? Sauce. I mean, it's the one thing I... Sauce. Sauce. The spelling just gets stuck in my head of like, you know, but anyway. Sauce, like four horror movies. I always want to say saos. That's what I'm saying. Anyway, I guess at least we're talking about the brand. That's kind of the point. S-A-U-Z is how it's spelled. Yes. This is the new miso garlic marinara sauce. It's got, I think, some... Well, I mean, it's got like basically this kind of kicked up umami flavor. Yeah. It's pretty darn tasty. I mean, these guys make really good quality jarred tomato sauce. I would drink that. It's so good.

17:30Yeah, it sounds bomb. I think this is available nationally at Whole Foods. Nice. I don't know if it's limited time or what the deal is, but quite tasty. Highly recommend that. Yeah. If I were a design expert, and I'm not, I would say that I'd pump up the size of the brand. I wouldn't. No? No. The size of the font that describes the flavor and the size of the font of the brand are the same. I would take the size of the brand down a bit. I would etch the logo into the glass just to throw their cogs completely out the window. Who cares about that? I think the flavor is the hero here. And also, you can see that it's a sauce, too.

18:09Okay. I also have these delicious Terranian brand. See what they did there, baby? These are awesome. Just dropped the meta off the Terranian there. uh za 'atar pita chips za 'atar whatever that's how we say in massachusetts za 'atar um these are really really tasty super good fresh tasting pita chip they have two varieties they have uh a za 'atar and they also have a cinnamon sugar they're um they're described as twice baked interesting so they're pretty they must be pretty crunchy try these ray i mean there's first of all you get 14 chips for 110 calories and they're super crunchy and they're twice baked i don't know if it's because they're twice baked or whatever whatever their secret formula is maybe it's because they're twice baked these are really really crispy and good and the flavor of course because they are za 'atar tastes really good dipped in the uh new single serve chipotle bitchin sauce comes right at you i'm gonna go for the cinnamon here too yeah so i misspoke the turanian pita chips come in three varieties that we have at least the spicy zatar the regular zatar and the cinnamon spice there you go there you go yeah the premium cinnamon uh sorry cinnamon sugar variety also quite amazing try that jack you got anything over there because like yeah our audience is gonna lose it we're hearing all these crunching in the microphones over here drooling over here though i need to get my hands on those snacks and the bitchin sauce i love me some good bitchin sauce well bitchin sauce is based in san diego so you should have a hard time getting a hold of that stuff yeah they just have been rolling out their single serve and then also they have like squeezable bitchin sauce which is like amazing you can put it on anything squeezable is good yeah but yeah what i have over here isn't necessarily as tasty or snackable, but it's functional.

20:07It is. I mean, I haven't tried it yet, so I can't say that, but dry water over here is another hydration drink powder. And they have this lemon lime and they have mixed berry. And what I really like about this is on the front of pack, they literally just have all of the ingredients laid out. So kind of like RX bar style, you can tell exactly what's in it, like six key electrolytes, amino acid, five plus essential vitamins. And then there's no added sugar either in these. Those guys have been Instagram adding the hell out of me. I want to try that. Have you tried it yet? I haven't tried it yet.

20:43That's going to be mad tasty. Yeah, it's going to be really good. Wait, you don't just drink it out of the... It's dry water. Just go right for the stick. I would probably inhale it and then just go everywhere. So we featured Dry Water in this week's episode of Elevator Talks. That's down with founder Brian Appio. And yeah, really interesting brand. Really interesting to hear about how he developed it. They're in Walmart nationwide, actually. They got in Walmart nationwide in October. So if you want to try the product, you can definitely go to your local Walmart. But yeah, definitely check out that episode of Elevator Talk.

21:18We sit down with some really interesting brands, including Dry Water, as well as sip herbals, sacred Bev, and see the elephant Amaro. And if you're interested in participating in a future episode of Elevator Talk, just head to BevNet.com slash Elevator Talk. I like how you said that. Slash. Slash. Slash. I have a care package from our good friend Kartik. Kartik. Das. The founder of. Kartik Das. The founder of Dusra. Dusra. The first one I kind of got into already, it's called Babu. And these are their chai biscuits. and there's some biscuits left, but they're amazing. It's a small cookie. It's like a square almost, or, well, it's like a rectangular cookie, but it's, it's a biscuit, but it's extra thick and it's got amazing flavor inside.

22:04Babu's spelled B-A-A-B-U. Chai biscuits is how they're described. And it says supports digestion. There's a little button on there. You should chai it, Ray. All right, send them on, send them on over. Buttery cookies with toasted fennel seeds. There you go. I like these like, you know, new age digestion biscuits because usually that's for like old people. But now they're kind of cool again. Jackie, you know what the thing? This is ironic, Jackie, because I've been thinking lately. I'm really into biscuits lately. Does that mean you're old? You know what? I was going there, too. Yes, Jackie. That's what it means.

22:40I'm into biscuits lately. And I was like, oh, yeah, I really like biscuits. These chai biscuits are hitting the right way for me. And then I was like, ah, shit. Did you just curse on Taste Radio? That got weird. Yeah. Okay. What else did our dear friend Kartik send you? Well, there's two snacks here from Reishi Snacks, which are traditional Indian snacks made lovingly in South Florida. This one's kale cranberry. And this one, Ray, this one's describing you. Jerk. And there's a jerk flavor. It says jerk. So Rishi Snacks, R-I-S-H-I, described as traditional Indian snack made lovely in South Florida.

23:19Although I should have said it's describing you, Jackie, after that are you old comment. So I assume this is pretty similar to Dusra? Let's have a check. I didn't open these. I'm going to go for the jerk flavor first. Yeah, the two varieties are jerk and kale cranberry, Mr. Craven. Not quite Ducera, but another sort of snack along the same... I mean, there's no kale and no cranberry in Ducera. Right. One of them has nuts. One of them is nut-free. The jerk has nuts. The other one does not. So does our show. Have nuts. I'm so confused. What's his? This is really good. It feels a little bit like Ducera in that it's just like that.

23:58If you want a snack of something and... Send it back. Yeah. That's really good. Yeah, pretty good. The jerk flavor is good. The kale cranberry, if you look inside the pouch, the ingredients are beautiful. You can definitely see the kale leaves. Real stuff in there. It's super vibrant. The peas, the cranberry, it's beautiful. It's not always this way, but the outside of the pack and the inside of the pack are equally beautiful. Wow, this is super vibrant, the kale cranberry. You're right, Ray. we also got some mint cardamom and cinnamon fennel seed digestives from chika chika which have amazing packaging and i'm sure these will taste great too uh you know who's a big fan of these melissa what's a traverse our director of community we have to give those to melissa a fennel seed digestive chika chika chika chika chika and then again uh they have a mint cardamom and cinnamon variety.

24:53But yeah, another digestive. What is Kartik trying to tell you over here? And not pictured because I hammered the entire bag was a bag of deuce. So when I saw you, when I saw you pull these out, I actually thought this was fishwife because it has a fishwife vibe. It does have that vibe. Agreed. I see that. Yeah. It's very flowery and beautiful. Whimsical is the right word. Yes. Anything else that you got there? Yes. Let's stick with me for a minute. Okay. Now it looks like you've got a baby bottle. So this is HUWA, which is a... H-U-W-A. H-U-W-A, which is a product of Palestine, and it's an extra virgin olive oil.

25:37And it's interesting. It has, like, this cool outside of the package, and inside there's a comic inside. That's cool. And then it has a cardboard label that you can take off the bottle. Right. And so I, I grabbed this the other day and it's, it's pretty cool. I haven't tried the olive oil yet. I, I don't know. I've been saving it for the show, but I got some interesting comments on the bottle itself and the comic and Madhu Sharaf, who is our dear friend from Kimbala makes an insanely good chai, had an interesting request. He wants to know how the bottle operates. So this is for you, Madhu. Ready?

26:18So the bottle for listeners. I have the same question. It does look like an oversized baby bottle. It looks like an oversized baby bottle. It's plastic, right? Yeah, it's plastic. It's plastic with a plastic cup. Well, I just wanted to hold it so I could see. So it's kind of, is it a squeeze bottle? Yes, and there's actually a couple of ridges where you can kind of hold your fingers and pour it out. But it definitely resembles something that a child would hold in their hand. Sippy cup. Yeah, a sipy cup kind of thing. Yeah, that's why he was so curious. It's pretty functional. Like you can see how easy it is for consumers to use.

26:52Very cool. Nice. Yeah. And I'll have to report back on how I'm sure that it's going to be amazing. Yeah. It's described as ethically sourced, organic and GMO free, handcrafted, handpicked, handwashed, indigenous farming using the same techniques for thousands of years. Very cool. And emojis on the bottle are cool, too. You've got like question mark. You get confused in love. And, you know, they're pretty cool. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much for sending these Kartik and to the founders of Hua. Thank you so much for sending your products. Quick break. If this episode has you thinking about what's next in food and beverage, explore BevNet and Nosh Insider, our subscription platform with deeper insights from the BevNet team.

27:36Visit tasteradio.com slash insider to learn more. All right, let's get to our featured interview for this episode. As I mentioned at the top of the show, Stephanie McGregor is the founder and CEO of Ringa, a brand of plant-based beverages that are marketed as, quote, holistic hydration. Launched in 2023, Ringa is made with all organic ingredients, including moringa, apple cider vinegar, and prebiotic fiber from agave inulin. The beverages contain no added sugar and come in three flavors, lemon and ginger, cucumber and mint, and elderberry and lavender lemonade. Based in Seattle, Ringa is currently sold at Earth Fair stores across the southeast, as well as several independent retailers in the Pacific Northwest.

28:25Each 12-ounce can retails for approximately$4. Stephanie, a veteran food and beverage brand executive who has worked with Vitamin Water, Pop Chips, and Smash Mallow, Join me for an interview at the 2025 Winter Fancy Food Show, where we spoke about her inspiration to launch a beverage brand, how she is attempting to align education about functional ingredients to a common habit, why she's not chasing demand for gut-friendly sodas, and what she's learned from taking a slow and sustainable approach to retail growth.