The M&A Train Keeps Rolling. And, How 'Jovi's Hampton Water Got Hot.

0:10Hello friends and thanks for tuning into 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, Jackie Brugliera, Mike Schneider, and Melissa Traverse. In this episode, we sit down with Jesse Bon Jovi, who is the co-founder of Hampton Water Wine, a rosé wine brand that has taken the industry by storm. If Jesse's last name sounds familiar, it's because it does. He is the son of John Bon Jovi, the famous rocker, who is the other co-founder in Hampton Water Wine. I seriously hope you slipped in some Bon Jovi lyrics.

0:48Like, does it make a difference if you make it or not? Uh, no, I didn't do that. But I will say it was a really outstanding interview. I enjoyed every minute that I talked to Jesse. Because you had each other and that was a lot. Stay tuned for it, folks. It's coming soon. And you gave it a shot. Sorry, I'll stop. It's fine. I'm impressed. Thanks. On a somber note, John's not with us today as his father, Jack Craven, passed away this week. Jack was a meaningful member of the BevNet family, and many of us were fortunate enough to have known him. We're keeping John, Carolyn, and the Craven family in our thoughts.

1:21May Jack rest in peace.

1:27Yeah, we're looking forward to having John and Carolyn back in the office. And at the upcoming Taste Radio meetup in New York City, which is taking place in just a few days, Tuesday, April 15th at Rethinks Community Kitchen in Greenwich Village. If you haven't already registered, please do so now. The registration list is getting long and very busy. Tasteradio.com slash NYC. And in just a few weeks, we'll be in Austin, Texas on May 6th, which is also a Tuesday at Torchy's Tacos at their Oaks at Slaughter location. It's going to be a blast. Tasteradio.com slash Austin is how you register and sign up for that event.

2:10And if you are interested in becoming a partner at any of our upcoming meetups, just let us know. Send me a note, rlatif at bevnet.com. We'd love to have you on board. We'd love to promote what you're doing via the meetups, via our banners, via our promotion of the events. So just let me know, rlatif at bevnet.com. Melissa Travers, thank you for being here. It's so fun when you're in the studio. I always love having you here. Thanks so much for doing it. Well, it's such a pleasure to be here to see your sunshiny faces. I think it's been raining for the last like 50 days straight here in the East Coast.

2:49So it's a pleasure to be here. Yeah, it has been raining quite a bit. And sunshiny faces, typically, I think mine is, I don't know. I think it's been a little weathered, shall we say, because of the rain. Jackie, poor Jackie. I don't know. She was fighting some kind of weird thing. Fighting so much traffic today. this person was trying to do a world record for a traffic standoff and he's been there since yesterday at 2 p.m. so i don't know about that one but i don't know if i'm as sunshiny either after this morning can i ask you a quick what the heck is a traffic standoff who knows there's a world record for anything but i guess he's just trying to stop traffic and he's been doing it for almost 24 hours he's trying to get the guinness book world record for biggest asshole yes he's He's not even protesting anything.

3:36He's just being a noose. I hate this guy. He just wants the attention. That's what I think. That's a really good point, actually. If you were actually protesting, if you were putting your life on the line, because if you're standing in traffic, you are. And if you're putting your principles on the line by doing such things, you know, there's even if you hate what's happening, you got to respect it. But what this guy's doing sounds quite obnoxious. And did you curse at him when you did you roll down your window? Because you clearly have an old car. i didn't get to see him to flip him off you know we had to go really far around but would you yeah she said she was gonna i think i'm gonna just mean mugged him i'm not much one for flipping off but you know just leave that to the people who are spray painting everything orange in england you know and blocking traffic okay they're protesting oil at least yeah they're standing for something at least for something not just standing for blocking traffic Yes.

4:29Well, if you want to learn about the best way to block traffic, I don't know. Does Nonbase cover that? You know, Nonbase covers just about, I wouldn't be surprised if you could find the answer to that on Nonbase. Well, I got to say, I mean, it has been a huge hit, Melissa. I don't know how many people have emailed me, talked to me at an event and said, Nombase is just incredible. And there's a lot of excitement and there's just a lot of enthusiasm for a platform that finally, finally brings all the information you want together in one place. And that was really the idea to have a centralized hub of information for everything that we do.

5:08And, you know, as we've talked about before, we put so much work into it to make sure that all the information there is top quality. So if any folks out there in the audience haven't gone to Nombase yet, nonbase.com. Make sure you check out our directory to either put your listing in there or update it. So we did feed it with listings, but you may want to go in there and change out the picture, change out some of the information so that people can get ahold of you. So definitely check that out. And the non-base podcast. I'm so excited to finally have a home for that. And the last two podcasts that we've done.

5:47I mean, I don't know. I guess it's my baby, so I'm a little biased, but we had a show with Pierre Jemais and Pistachio about growing retail. And Pierre, he's just so smart and gave so many really specific - Pierre Jemais of - Fish Wife. Fish Wife, yes, thank you. And previously of Petit Po. Petit Po, yeah, exactly. And he just, have you ever been to a kid's party where they have one of those cray paper balls as a favor and you unwrap the ball and all these prizes fall out? No, but I've talked to Pierre and he's so smart. And every time you talk to him, it's like, can I talk to you more? Yeah. I mean, the information that he was talking about how to minimize and sometimes avoid slotting and free fill, when to expand, specifically how to drive velocity.

6:33So definitely check that out if you haven't already. And then we also had Jason Smith of Ithaca Hummus on with Jana Goodbaum of Happy Wolf. And again, Jason Smith, he's just like the stuff that comes out of his mouth is gold. He went through and specifically talked about the exact stores that are good to demo in, how he puts his team together, the software he uses, so very specific stuff. No one needs this information though, right? I mean, like you don't want to know how to avoid plotting fees. You don't want to know the best ways to drive velocity. You certainly don't want to know the best retailers to demo your products.

7:05You just want all that money vacuumed right out of your pocket. You don't need any of that. And nobody wants a shortcut. Everyone wants to figure it out for themselves. Everyone wants to spend more money than they need to, right? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And if anybody out there has an idea for a show, maybe you're a brand and you're trying to figure out the answer to a specific problem, reach out to me, mtravers at bevnet.com. I love to chat and see if we can get you some help and perhaps make a podcast out of it. Absolutely. And we had an episode of Elevator Talk recently where a participant reached out after the show and asked if we knew of or could help her with co-packing solutions, with ingredient supplier solutions.

7:48And immediately I thought of you, Melissa, and I sent her your way. And I hope you had a good conversation. I'm sure you did. I mean, they can also just search nonbase.com for starters, too. And then once they have a bunch of questions, ask us other questions. And the other thing here is like, I know we have suppliers and service providers who are listening to us right now. Go to nonbase.com, search for your company. It's probably in there and you haven't claimed your page yet. There's so much cool stuff you can do there to set up your page. Yes, we've done our best to explain who you are, but nobody does it better than you.

8:19Absolutely. And I think the best part about nonbase is that it is a platform, as I mentioned, sort of with that human element as well. I really don't necessarily love when I go to a place and all it is, is the program or the software. Just knowing that someone can reach out to you, Melissa, and have a conversation with you. It's just a warm and fuzzy feeling. It's a cool concept that we've been working on for a long time. Jackie, I mean, like, what is it? We've got search. We've got a community. Yeah, we got search, community, jobs, press releases. We have our Slack community. and this is something that's evolving too.

8:56This is something that's gonna constantly evolve and grow. We're gonna add new features. So we wanna hear what you think of it and we wanna get your feedback because it's going into it in real time. To Jackie's point, NonBase is evolving. I'm working on a program that I'm super excited about. Me too, me too. It's constantly evolving and we wanna hear from you. Just send email to Melissa or ask at tasteradio.com. We'd love to hear from you. We're so psyched about NonBase. I am so psyched for the team at Lesser Evil. I sat down with Charles Korstein last year, I believe it was in late July, and I went to the Lesser Evil facilities.

9:37They have more than one in Connecticut. And we just had a fabulous conversation. I was able to visit the place and places where they actually make the popcorn. And it was very Willy Wonka-ish. but there is a method to that madness, so to speak. And Charles leading the helm, just an incredible place, person and brand and team, obviously. And so when I heard last week that Hershey had agreed to acquire the company for$750 million, I was just so elated. That's close enough. That's pretty close. Mike raised his right pinky to his lip once again. You're only about a quarter mil away from a bill, but I think they're going to get there.

10:19I still think it was funnier when he said one million. Yeah. So if you're not familiar, Lesser Evil is the maker of organic popcorn and healthy snacks. They've been around for some time. They were in all kinds of trouble before Charles took over the company. I believe it was in 2010 or around that time. And they have just turned into this amazing platform that makes really delicious food, way better for you alternatives than what has previously been out there from popcorn to cheese balls to kids' snacks and - Cool collabs. Cool collabs. But like, this is the modern brand that I think really represents what people want.

10:57Simple, easy to understand, delicious, better for you. It just tastes so good. Like I go to other popcorns and then I go back to them because it just, I could eat an entire bag in one sitting. So I think that quality and the branding and the collabs It's just like a great like formula for success. The way that Charles has grown that brand has been so impressive and I'm so happy for them. Yeah. And I would say this also, you know, if you think about what it takes to be a great company, definitely listen to anything that Charles has talked about on a podcast or written about or anything that's been written about the brand, because he is very transparent about what it takes to execute upon a vision, to lead a company with intentionality, and to establish good working relationships with your partners, retailers or otherwise, definitely check out the interview that I did with Charles.

11:53It is published or was published on July 30th of 2024. It's titled, Lesser Evil is Doing Good, Really Good, Attitude and Operations Are the Keys. You're good at those titles, right? You like that? I didn't even use chat GPT for that one. I feel more awake already. Ray makes these all up in there. I'm always tickled. Yes. Oh, okay. Ray, that is not. Moving right along. Congratulations also to the team at Mela. Dominic Perpera, the founder. I sounded so old. No. Sounds like something my grandpa would have said. Yeah. I was tickled by that one. Mela. As folks probably are familiar with, Mela is a brand of watermelon water.

12:38They describe themselves as watermelon water. It's really about watermelon juice. And it's a plant-based hydration platform. We first met the folks at Mela, Dominic specifically. Was that three years ago on stage at BevNet Live when he participated in the New Beverage Showdown? Everyone was really excited about this brand. Yeah. He's cool. The watermelon juice comes, the watermelon water comes in these 16-ounce cans, really catchy branding. and when we saw Dominic at the Miami beat up in February, he had a big smile on his face and he seemed so happy and excited. And we're like, what's going on?

13:14You seem particularly tickled, Dominic. And he's like, we got a big announcement to make. It's gonna happen in a couple of months. And I'm like, ooh, exciting. Can you share any details? He's like, it's big. We'll just let you know. Then he's trying to distract us with his tattoos. Yeah. What the heck is going on today, Mike? What do you mean? I was not part of that. I was not part of that, by the way. So Mella was acquired by a company called King Juice. You may not know the name King Juice, but they are the parent company of a brand you probably do know, which is Calypso Lemonades. So terms of the deal were not announced or they were not revealed.

13:55But I am so excited for more Mella to be in more places. And that's exactly what King Juice is going to do. So congratulations once again to Mela, to Dominic, and to the King Juice team. You guys get a hell of a brand. I take a lot of beverages home and share them with my family. And that was one that my 10 and 12-year-old boys were psyched about. Yeah. I recall John Craven was talking about how his daughters would text him from college or from wherever. and the text would just be we need more mella bro yeah we need mella bro yeah mella it would just be mella bro yeah yeah i think that's what it was that's how the kids talk today more mella bro call me bro too do they really i kind of like that my daughter megan calls me kitty kitty sup kitty i i don't know why i we got all generation i don't understand going on here What's up, kid?

14:53How you doing, kitty? Like you're a little kitty. Not like you're like a meow kitty. No, not meow. That's what I thought. K-I-D-D-I-E, kitty. What's up, kid? Okay. Got it. That makes more sense. Kitty. Kid-ee. I think the E, adding the E is a very sports thing to do. Like when you say Schneide, you know, instead of Schneider, you say Schneide. I guess Schneids are spider. Yeah. Like a lot of people. For sports. As an example, if someone's name is Bruce, they go Brucie. Brucey or Sherry? Ray. Yeah. No, they don't say Ray. Ray, yeah. Jackie? It's already in there. Yeah, Jackie's already in there.

15:30I was already to be an athlete. Jackie's qui-qui to be cool. No, they would just double my name like Jackie. They would say Ray Ray. Ray Ray. Ray Ray. Yeah. Melissa. My nickname is Moe Bro. It's already have bro in the Moe. Moe Bro. Yeah. Oh, what's wrong with our podcast today? I feel like I said it on fire. When I said tickle. Yes, yes. Yes, MoBro, I like that. Okay. Well, if you want to know exactly how all these deals happened and get the full story behind the acquisition of Lesser Evil and Mela, you got to be an insider. You got to go to bevnet.com slash insider or nosh.com slash insider.

16:08It's very easy to sign up. It is a modest cost and an important way for you to stay on top of everything that's happening in food and beverage. Once again, bevnet.com slash insider or nosh.com slash insider. Okay, I've got a surprise for all y 'all. Oh, you do? I'm a little nervous. I'm not sure why. I need a moment to prepare. So while I'm preparing, Mike, you're drinking your can of Ish. So talk about your Ish while I prepare here. Okay, so Ish is a brand of, they call themselves the Mindful Drinking Company. They're a brand of non-alcoholic premium cocktails from Denmark. And I'm drinking the spritz right now.

16:53As everyone knows, I'm sober curious. And I feel like this is one that just hits so nicely. It's got the bitter flavor that I like. And it just, it reminds me of what I've been quote missing. I really like this. At what point do you go from sober curious to sober informed? Melissa, here's the thing. We need to spend hours on this conversation. I just don't get it. When am I just sober? I mean, I guess if I stop, I'd have to just stop for at least a year and then just be like, I'm never drinking and then be ashamed if I did it again. So I don't know, something like that. Okay, fair enough, fair enough.

17:36Every once in a while. I'll keep tabs on it. We should have like sober flex or, you know, like kind of like flexitarian. Just be like flexible. okay right as everyone knows let's let's start over and everyone knows i'm sober flex sober flex yeah i think that the term that everyone wants to be a part of or wants to be associated with is probably moderation yes moderation yeah i mean you know just don't overdo it especially at this age my god i like sober flex i'm taking it yeah don't do it don't overdo it on booze. Don't overdo it on sugar. Don't overdo it on fatty foods. Just have a good time.

18:14Enjoy yourself. Isn't Anthony Bourdain the one who said moderation and everything, including moderation? Okay. Fair enough. I like that. I like that. It's been a while. All right. So as I mentioned, okay, so this might be my favorite marketing initiative of the year, and it's coming from the folks at Evolution Fresh. Evolution Fresh is the maker of cold pressed juices. They also make a fantastic real fruit soda that they launched. I believe it was last year. And so they've been a rave for it for a long time. A favorite of Ray. A rave. I like that. A rave. Nice. So they have announced a way for folks to sneak.

18:52They're actually promoting something that's not necessarily legal per se, but it's fine to sneak their real fruit soda into theaters and reclaim their soda moments in a guilt-free yet rebellious way they have a soda smuggling device okay wow this is actually pretty great things into movie theaters yeah i feel like the game changers you always have to bring like a big tote into the movie theater and they're never checking it right yeah but once i got some stuff with my kids ahead of the movie and I just stuffed it in my coat and I went to pay for the tickets and everything fell out. And it was one of those moments where everyone was like, just looking, looking, looking, looking.

19:35And I just picked him up and put him in my coat. No one said anything. Oh, geez. You can do whatever you want. You just can't get caught. Yeah. No, you can get caught. Nobody wants the conflict. I mean, I was that guy that was smuggling booze into the theaters. I'll fully admit that. Until I made the humongous mistake of trying to smuggle a Bloody Mary into the theater via my pocket. And I was covered in tomato juice, olives, all those little accoutrements that come. And it was just a disgusting mess. Just a glass that you stuck in your pocket? I wish I could explain how ridiculous and stupid this was, Melissa, but it was pretty bad.

20:11Was this like a morning movie? Like what time of day was this? It was like an 11 a.m. movie. It was the movie Alien Covenant, which we were so excited to see. My dear friend Adam Stern and I, we were going to go see it. Oh, Stern was there. There's a shot. Yeah, that makes more sense that you both were doing this. And I was trying to bring Bloody Marys for everyone, and it just turned into a disaster. For listeners who don't know, Ray and Stern are the human equivalents of Bert and Ernie. I thought you were going to say Laverne and Shirley. Who's Bert? Am I Bert? I think so. Oh, okay. Yeah, for sure.

20:43Definitely. Stern's definitely Ernie. He's got the laugh in the... Yeah. I guess I'm more responsible and buttoned up. I was going to say the focus on being germ-free, too. I feel like birds also like a... Except for the pigeons, that doesn't make sense. But yeah. Yeah, well, I can see Sterno taking baths more often. I'm not a bath kind of guy. Ray would have a bottle cap collection. Way too much information. He would have an extensive bottle cap collection that he hoards, I'm sure. Okay, can we please get back to evolution? Okay, so they sent me this amazing box, and I opened it up, and they have an instruction manual on how to use it.

21:18This says, take a stand against concession stand soda. And they have steps here. They have step one, step two, step three. And so the first step is to pop a can of Evolution Fresh real fruit soda into the secret compartment. The secret compartment of what? You may ask. It's the secret compartment of a fedora. A fedora? Yes, dear folks. Yes. What if we all walked into a movie theater wearing those, though? I think that would look a little strange. And so what's amazing is there is a secret compartment. as you can see, if you're watching the video, there's a secret compartment all the way in the bottom of the...

21:52Would you look at that? Yeah. What do you call this part of the hat? The top? I don't know what kind of hat that is. It's almost like a cowboy hat. It is. It is. It is actually more of a cowboy hat. I mean, Indiana Jones would be like, huh? Yeah. So anyway, you got your secret compartment. Well, let's see. Let's see you activate it. Yeah. You take a can of Evolution fresh real fruit soda the one i have in my hand is their tropical mango which by the way contains five grams of sugar pre and probiotics and is made with real squeezed fruit it is usda organic contains 45 calories per 12 ounce can and five grams of sugar this is going to be just like me at the movie theater where things fell out it's going to fall out of your hat here we go we're going to put this in here is this a play to get evolution fresh into movie theaters is this the ultimate pitch perhaps but if you see this is actually pretty good because it doesn't fall out wow and here we go i think it's just to promote soft mark behavior hold on bear with me folks yeah right go for it oh you're replacing oh oh it doesn't it's my chance it's a small hat or you have a big head did you just throw my hat what that got me a lot of money what do you mean all All right.

23:09Yeah, this is not necessarily the cartoon cowboy with like the big hat. OK, this is. Yeah. Wow. In terms of fashion, I can't even put my headphones back on. So I couldn't hear what you were saying. She was saying nothing but nice things. Stop filming me. My goodness. All right. Well, Evolution Fresh. I love this idea. I probably need a slightly bigger hat. But for folks who have a smaller head than I do, I have a big brain. you might want to consider getting one of these. It makes you look taller. It does make me look taller. And I got to say, I do feel like this is one of the funnest and most creative marketing initiatives that I've seen in a while.

23:48So good job, Evolution Fred. Well done. All right, Jackie's in tears. I don't know if she can talk about anything that's currently on her desk, but she'll try here. Can't follow up with that. Yeah. I have a brand over here called Coaqua, and it is a line of coconut water and they have a bunch of interesting flavors. So this is just, they're still coconut water, literally just coconut water with a little bit of cane sugar. What was it before? What was it before? Yeah. It's still coconut water. It's still, yes. Before. Yeah. That's a good dad joke.

24:27that was that was jack that was jackie being both frustrated and annoyed at the same time i love how mike cracks himself up more than anything is jackie well beyond what they still are they also have citrus circus they have an espresso one called espressoed. And then the one that I'm drinking right now is sour sopping. So this one has coconut water and sour sop juice and a little bit of cane sugar. Also known as guanabana, right? Soursop, same thing. I believe so. How much sugar is in that one? Those are known to be like the most sugar intense fruit. Yeah. This one has 21 grams of total sugar.

25:12Okay. No, that's not too bad. But not terrible. But yeah, some really cool flavors like soursop. And have you had like an espresso coconut water? I haven't had that one. It's in the fridge upstairs and I've been curious about it, but I don't like such a coffee purist that I don't always try those coffee flavors. How is it? Oh, actually, it's pretty good. Yeah. Yeah, it's nice. Coffee and coconut water was a really good pairing. So I agree. The winner of our second ever New Beverage Showdown was a brand called Coco Cafe. And they made a blend of coconut water, coffee and coconut cream. I believe it was actually espresso.

25:51And it was really delicious. And Vitacoco, folks remember, Vitacoco bought the brand about three or four months after its debut, after it won New Beverage Showdown, actually. So yeah. I think Harmless Harvest also had a coffee skew that I really enjoyed. So we need more coconut water and coffee collabs or combinations. That's the takeaway here. Is it time for my surprise yet? No, we're going to skip you because you threw my hat. Melissa, what's up? No, we're doing my surprise. Okay. We haven't even gotten a chance to really talk about these on the show because, well, we got them before they came up, but I got the Superfoodio peanut butter butter cup.

26:30Nice. Yeah. Jackie introduced me to this brand. We were in UK and I saw it. Because the Superfoodio is a UK-based brand. Right. We're in UK. We're in London. And we were at Whole Foods and I saw the brand and I was like, that looks really cool. And then for some reason I didn't pick it up. And then we're standing on the street and Jackie goes, look at these. And I was like, oh, thank goodness you bought those. It was like the buttons, the peanut butter buttons. They're just like so good. And then I got to meet the founder and we sat down for like a couple of hours. I don't know where the time went because it was like, it felt like we'd only been sitting there for 15 minutes, but we had been sitting there for so long.