The Secret To A Smashing Debut… And A Sustainable Future

0:10Hello friends 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 I'm with my co-host for this episode, John Craven, Jackie Brugliera, and Mike Schneider. In this episode, we sit down with Luke Holden, the founder and CEO of traceable and sustainable seafood brand, Luke's Lobster. Happy solstice to everyone here. We're recording on June 21st. It is finally summer. I would say the temperatures here in the Boston area are... appropriate for the season. 75-ish. Jackie, how are things in San Diego?

0:52Yeah, we're finally out of May, gray, June gloom. So it's summer here too. I left for New York. It was cloudy and pretty lame. And now it's a lot better. It feels like summer. No, it was nice in New York, the weather. I mean, it was weird because, you know, at points of the day, you would have a downpour and then it would open up and be beautiful. It was like New Orleans. You know, New Orleans is a lot like that. Yeah. Hey, at least we weren't in sepia filter. Well, like it was before we the skies were clear. Is that a Wes Anderson reference? No, okay Because that new movie asteroid cities out I'm gonna go see it at some point Same here.

1:26I can't wait big fan John Craven. You don't seem like a Wes Anderson fan I saw the trailer for that. It looks interesting. You ever seen Rushmore. Of course come on life aquatic fantastic movie I mean just watching this was phenomenal just watching like the cast like list for the Asteroid City movie is like, hurts your head. There's too many people in it. There's a lot of people in that movie. It's like independent films of the aughts where they would have to like name like a hundred different people and like hopefully you'd be a fan of one of them. But yeah, my favorites, I think Rushmore is probably my, well, that's hard to say.

2:01Tenenbaums. The Grand Budapest Hotel. That one's amazing. The Darjeeling Limited and Rushmore, I think are top three right there. Darjeeling Limited for me, I wanted to like it. And then right as I started to get it, it ended. So then I had to watch it again. I think that's the idea. Probably is. I think it's one of his shorter films. Yeah. Did you see the social media trend where it's like your life as a Wes Anderson film? That was amazing. I made a guy, I made a dude with a sign that says leave Wes Anderson to Wes Anderson. Well done. We missed that. We could have done that for BevNet, but would that have been lame for us?

2:38Probably lame. Yeah. Very lame. Leave it to Wes Anderson. Let's not overdo Wes Anderson. I think Nate would do a good job at doing Wes Anderson. Oh, yeah. 100%. You know what Nate does a good job at? Being Nate. Nate's stuff's amazing. Nate's in the corner of our studio right now running the board and doing an amazing job as always. Shout out to Nate. Nate Brescia, the man behind the studio. Minister of Photographic Arts. Yes. And Nate always takes good photos of me. unlike some, I was about to say the B word, as in begins with a B, ends in Astrid, stole my identity. Well, not really. There's a website out there called Muckrake, which apparently is...

3:20I thought you were talking about me for a second. Well, we're going to talk about you. Well, don't you worry. What's it called? It's called Muckrake. Is this the dark web? No, it's not the dark web. It's a site, I guess, that lists journalists or gives out information about journalists. So you can, I don't know, do research on people before they interview you. And so this one has, it's a muckrake.com slash Bev trade, which is my social media handle. And there's this random dude who was taking a selfie in front of a mirror, wearing a red shirt, a red button down shirt. At least he got that right.

3:51And gray slacks. When was the last time you saw me wearing slacks? I clicked that link in that. That guy looked like he had a neck tattoo. Oh, he does. If you look close, he does. Maybe it's a taste radio logo. I'm just putting ideas in your head. He's just got straight out the pen. That's not, it's not me. But our newest colleague, Brant, I don't know how to pronounce Brant's last name. Is it Gers? Just say Brant. Brant. I mean, it's not like there's 10 Brants here. Yeah. There's only one Brant. Brant. I think he had a good name for this guy. He called him not Ray Lateef, but Leigh Lateef. Leigh Lateef.

4:25My alter ego. So I'm going to get that right. I'm going to change my profile here on Muckrack to Leigh Lateef to accurately portray this guy. Why don't you change it to Ray Kent? You know. He's here. Ray Kent. He's everywhere. Still waiting for Chardon Ray, too. What Mike will do for likes. What Mike will do for likes on social media. Oh, geez. Let's start. Yeah, let's talk about that. The comments. All right. On the Roy Kent, Ray Kent photo. I mean, it's pretty spot on. Let's give people some context here. Well, we could start with this right here. Oh, no. Hold on. Wait, wait, wait. Not quite yet.

5:02Let's talk about this. John has a sledgehammer in his hand, and we'll talk about that in a second. So, Ray. Come on. No, we can't put the sledgehammer. No, we have to. Okay, fine. Just imagine, if you're listening to this, that I'm just holding a sledgehammer. He's waiting. I'm looking at Ray. To hit Ray or Mike with it. But Ray was so gassed, because, Ray, thank you, first of all, for hosting the New Beverage Showdown, hosting the live stream, and then also networking like a madman during the event. Podcasting. Podcasting, doing podcast interviews. It's like all the things. 10 seconds with taste radio.

5:35So at the end of BevNet Live, Ray is doing an interview, and he's just, it's just starting to set in. And I took a photo of him. He looked just like, he looked just like Roy Kent. He had that grim look, oi, look on his face. And it sounded like he's just going to be like, fuck, or whistle, or something like that. So of course I had to put a picture of both of you on social. So Roy Kent is a character on the hit TV show. Everybody knows who Roy Kent is. I'm not sure. There's some people who did not. I don't think so. There definitely is. Come on. Yeah, I know. No, not a lot of people. It's a soccer show.

6:08It's a show about an American coach who goes to coach a soccer team in England. It's called Ted Lasso. Great show. An American football coach who they hire as a spoof, basically. They try to bring a team down. It doesn't work. So there's an assistant coach on the team. He used to be a player for the team called Roy Kent. It's based on a real player named Roy Keane, who used to play for Manchester United. both of them have very gruff demeanors don't smile much and so i've received comments from some folks that i look like this guy and it's just because we have the same sort of haircut great beard and the same beard is the same great beard yours is slightly better yes i agree yes i agree but he doesn't smile and i tend to smile more often but anyways adam lurer when for mercenary stop adam lurer's for mercenary was the first one that pointed this out and then everyone started And then Mike essentially just brought everyone together.

7:01What's the word? Coalesced? Is that the word I'm looking for? I just brought it together. He brought all the chatterboxes together in one Instagram post. He got like 200 likes, like 100 comments. And everyone was like, I've been thinking this all along. I never put it together. That's amazing. Or some people said I never put it together. Yeah. He posted the side-by-side that everyone's been wanting to post. I bet I could get a hundred more likes if I posted it again. Anywho. I didn't like. I'm definitely going to drip that again. You had one person that didn't like, and that was me. Mission accomplished.

7:41You are a lot friendlier. I would think so, anyway. We're so... Move on to the next thing. Well, okay. So now we have to do a side-by-side of Mike and Chris Helmsworth. I think that's how you pronounce his name. because one is the actual Thor, and Mike thought he was the actual Thor when we received this package from Arizona Beverages, which is, I guess, promoting their newest hard seltzer. Is this what it is? No, no, no. Don't call it seltzer. We already got it. So we made a mistake. Mike got smacked for that. I got so excited about this thing, and I called it a hard seltzer, but it's a hard tea.

8:14Okay. So apologies to Arizona for that. You can set this up. Set this table. There's an Instagram post of Mike opening up a box from Arizona beverages. With this pink sledgehammer that has an Arizona hard logo on it. Yeah. And also a hard hat, work gloves, and what I would call, I mean, safety goggles in quotes. And it includes also this concrete block that weighs probably what? Like 10, 15 pounds? 10, 12 pounds? We think it's chalk, right? It's made of chalk. Not concrete. Oh, God. It's made of chalk Because my kids Well they reverted back to five and seven years old And colored in John's parking space after we did this Oh nice It was cool So Mike In all his glory Took this thing outside Wearing his hard hat And he had a cape on It was not a cape It was a flag The outfit was top notch It was pretty good.

9:18And then he proceeded to smash this thing to open it up. On Instagram, it showed you smashing this within like 10 seconds. It probably took you like half an hour. Oh, half an hour. Like chisel away? No, I hit it twice. And I was afraid that if I hit it too hard that I would go right through the can and I was trying to get the can out. So mission accomplished there. I mean, if I would, if I had gone like, like full Jimmy DeSico on that thing, it would have just, it would have exploded the whole can. Yeah. Well, anyway, so there was a can of Arizona hard tea in there. Did anyone actually try the tea or did it have too much?

9:51It got smashed. It got smashed. Well, we have another one. We're going to have to do this again. We're going to go smash that one in the parking lot after. Craven, are you wearing the get up this time? I am going to not partake in that, but I might smash the thing. Do we have insurance in case someone gets hurt from this? No, we're doing it in the parking lot. No, I mean, I tested it and I wanted to make sure because I didn't know that it wasn't concrete and I didn't want shrapnel to hit someone's car or something like that. So we cleared the space away, got a tripod. Amanda Huang was our camera person.

10:22I was like, you got to stand back here. We can't risk, you know, precious cargo. Well, anyway, A plus for Arizona Beverages on promoting this new hard tea. Really cool way to introduce it to the industry. Also, an A plus to our friends at Applied Food Sciences. This is AFS, the presenting sponsor for this episode of Taste Radio. AFS is the leader in innovation for functional organic ingredients in the natural products industry and is built on the belief that quality is transparent from seed to label through organic farming, ethical sourcing and sustainability. Learn more at AppliedFoods.com. Got to see Brian Zapp at BevNet Live.

11:05It was a quick, not as long as I wanted it to be that meeting, but we did get to catch up. He was wearing a Denver Nuggets baseball cap. They are based in Colorado. And of course, the Denver Nuggets won the NBA championship a couple of weeks ago. Was it a couple of weeks ago? A week ago? About a week ago. Yeah, we'll call it a couple. Yeah. Well, congratulations to everyone who was a fan of the team. And it seemed like anyone from Colorado is claiming them as their team now, which I guess is what happens. It's their first title. right? So it's a big deal. It's the basketball team's first title, right?

11:40Yes. But Denver definitely throws down whenever their teams win championships, whether it's the Avalanche or the Rockies or the Nuggets or the Broncos. I'm doing the same thing with Man City. Jesus. You bunch of losers. Speaking of bandwagon, wow. A guy was a non-am force a few weeks ago. Well, they were at the top. I don't even know if I can work for this company anymore. And also a big congratulations to Parch. Parch was the winner of New Beverage Showdown 25. Parch is a maker of canned non-alcoholic cocktails that are analogs to Mezcal and tequila-based drinks. They make a Paloma, and I'm forgetting what the other one is.

12:26Yes, spicy pineapple. Yeah, we've talked about Parch on the podcast a couple of times. Yes. Beautiful packaging, outstanding flavor, is a true replacement for mezcal and tequila-based drinks, cocktails. And Isla Byrne, who's one of the co-founders, presented both in the semifinals and the finals. I thought she did a fantastic job in her pitches and the judges agreed as well. Everyone who participated in the New Beverage Showdown did a really amazing job. This was one of our strongest slates of participants, 12 brands. I really feel like everyone had a good shot and had a good reason to be up on stage.

13:10And, you know, I heard from so many people at the show that this was the toughest competition that we've had. The pitches were on point and the professionalism, the branding, everything just was really tight for a lot of these brands. And it was really hard to try and figure out who was going to win. I think it was definitely close. Yeah, there was some drama at the end because I think there were out of the six finalists, I think there was some, I don't know, there always is some disagreement among attendees about, you know, who won and who should have won. But I think this one was, was really tough.

13:43the first thing that we said when we got back into the judging room was that this is going to take a while it's this is going to be a very difficult decision to make because of what jackie said everybody's presentations were so good and the the liquids were good and and there were compelling reasons to let any of the 12 move forward and i think we've seen that in the past few competitions where we are fortunate to attract the best of the best in in terms of new beverages. Absolutely. And five out of the six finalists did not use notes on stage, which actually blew me away because I mean, for all the number of times that I've hosted the showdown and the nosh pitch slam and the brewbound pitch slam, I always use notes and people are like, oh, you're so professional on stage.

14:28Yeah. It's because I have a, I have, I have no cards. I have a safety holding cue cards in the back for you. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think we all were talking about to how passionate they all were. So they oozed their brand. They knew what they were talking about because it was coming from the heart. So it wasn't something scripted. And I think that came through in their presentations. I think the edge here was just that Parch is doing something that kind of hasn't been done yet in terms of just replacing an occasion with something that was so close to the actual occasion. And, you know, it's just a tiny bit of innovation when you're saying we've got this non-alc cocktail that tastes like a cocktail and even has a little bit of burn like a cocktail and that edged it.

15:16Yeah. And it's something that you could hold and you wouldn't know that it's not alcoholic. You know, you could be at a party and it looks cool. So I think it has both the taste and the experience and then it pays off and the branding. Yeah. That's my, my guess as to what edge it. I wasn't in the final judging room. Maybe, Maybe we could get something from the first news in that room. Well, there were two people in that room in this recording. True, true. You were there. Yeah, I don't want to speak for the judges, but I think the winner speaks for itself, right? Yeah, agree. Yeah. Well, staying on the theme of non-alcoholic cocktail brands, some big news in the world of that space.

16:00in that Ghia, the aperitif brand or non-alcoholic aperitif brand helmed by Melanie Massarin, has just announced that they're going into Sweetgreen locations in New York City and Southern California. Congratulations to the brand. It seems like a really good fit. If you listen to our episode with Nicholas Jemay, the co-founder of Sweetgreen, earlier this week, we talked about how Melanie and Nick have a close relationship. He mentored her as she was building her brand and just seems like a natural partnership in that way. So I'm excited to go to Sweet Greens and get some guia. And also, big news in that De Sois, the beverage company that has Katy Perry as a co-founder, has a new rosé variety.

16:49De Sois Rosé, well, it's actually called Trey Rosé. is described as a bold and balanced rosé-inspired RTD canned aperitif. It is made with a blend of adaptogens including lion's mane, soothing saffron, and relaxing botanicals like rooibos. What does that do? It gives you balanced flavors and feelings. You should pay me for that. Was that an ad that we just did? No, it sounded like that at the end. But no, props to Morgan McLaughlin, who is the co-founder of Dessois as well. I think the new can looks pretty outstanding. I hope they use this imagery and we'll include it in the show notes for the rest of their lineup because it looks really, really good.

17:33And also like the description on the front, like you see Dessois in big letters at the, or toward the top of the can. And then very specifically, it calls out that it is a sparkling, non-alcoholic aperitif. So really just being clear as to what it is. Speaking of new products, I'm very excited to head back to New York City for the 2023 Summer Fancy Food Show. A bunch of us from BevNet and Nosh and Taste Radio are heading out there. If you are also heading out there as an exhibitor, as a backpacker, please let us know, especially if you have new products to announce. If you're a new brand that's attending the show, if you're a beverage company, upload that news to BevNet.com slash submit news.

18:18If you're a food brand, to nosh.com slash submit news. If you want to introduce yourselves to us and you're a new brand, please do send us an email to ask at taste radio dot com. Would love to meet you. Put you on the socials. 10 seconds with Taste Radio is our new series that does promote new brands, emerging brands and disruptive ones as well. So, yeah, let us know. All right. We've already talked about one new product that we have here in the studio. obviously that's the arizona iced tea the soon to be smashed concrete box of arizona trying to summon my hammer it's not working but uh john craven has a very delicious product in his hand tell us all about it yeah this is the new lesser evil and rind snacks pina colada popcorn which is uh yummy collaboration pretty tasty it's like a little sweet a little savory i don't know somebody wants a popcorn it's like fancy kettle corn we got a special delivery founder uh rind founder matt weiss he came over on a scooter scooter it's kind of cool you don't see that every day he scooted over right at the end of the event but it's uh you know special delivery popcorn with some rind snacks built into it yeah so this is a lesser evil rind snacks collab so good and i've actually been buying this product for the last two or three weeks on imperfect foods imperfectfoods.com.

19:44It's the website that sells about to be expired or just excess stock, excess inventory products. I was going to say, how does this fit into that? Well, because if you have a long relationship with the company, I think the brands and Imperfect Foods kind of work together to offer some interesting items to their customers. And this is one of those products that I've been just craving. And I actually, I think I bought like six bags just so I could have them for the summer. Yeah, super cool. I'm glad I brought popcorn because this conversation you guys are having is really interesting.

20:20You know, John doesn't listen to the podcast on a regular basis. He participates. He just doesn't listen to it. Why would I listen to myself talk? Okay. That's crazy. This is like, I think you actually, if we, if we added up the amount of talking that happens on the podcast, I think you would probably have the fourth most. Which is another way of saying the least. That's right. It's another way of saying at least one person tries to choose their words wisely. It's true. But you know what? This actually comes up in like sitcoms and movies when like some people feel like they don't get enough lines.

20:57So this actually happened. This is a true story in that in Star Trek, the old Star Trek, William Shatner used to always complain that Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock and Shatner played Captain Kirk. Leonard Nimoy was always getting either more or the equal amount of lines. And Shatner would be like, I'm the star here. I'm the star. I deserve the most lines. I'm the star. Yes. Star Trek. I'm Captain Kirk. Yeah, I think Ray's the star. I'm Captain Kirk. I don't think you'd mind being Spock in this situation now. Sure, why not? Well, Spock is great. Spock is very shrewd. He's the most intelligent person on the show.

21:35Can you do the finger thing? I can't do it Let's go back to the popcorn Can you do the finger thing? That sounded creepy I can't do it You can't do it? No As long as prosper, Jackie So we have popcorn Jackie, while you're doing the Vulcan I can do it, I can do it, there we go What? Yeah I'm out of the loop Okay, yeah, well You're not a child of the 60s Nor am I, nor am I I haven't been practicing long enough You know, you all had a start on me Okay, so you have some jerky in your hand. I do. I have Theo's Plant Based. It is a beet jerky. And this is sesame ginger teriyaki. And what I thought was really interesting is on the front, it says that in each bag, you get one large beet per package.

22:21So you know exactly what you're getting. It's very simple ingredients. It's literally just beets and spices. And it was really tasty. I love the packaging. It pops. Wait, so it's just one beet? One large beet, which, you know, that could vary. Okay, so how much did that bag of beet jerky retail for? Do you know? That's a good question. Probably more than a large beet. That's my point. Like, beet's not super expensive. So you didn't get this from Pop-Up Grocer? Because I remember in our last episode, you said you don't look at prices when you go to Pop-Up Grocer. No, you don't. Fairly. It's funny.

23:00I got this jar of the Ghia hazelnut spread. From Pop-Up Grocer? From Pop-Up Grocer. What do you think the price is on this? I'm going to go with$68. I'm going to go with$20. I'm going to go with$14. Well, I guess if we're playing price is right rules, Jackie wins$16. Should have bet a dollar. Well, Jackie went to Pop-Up Grocer. She probably looked at all the prices. Scattered it all out. Cheater. I wasn't looking at any prices. Okay, but we don't know the price of the beet jerky. No. All right, let's go to some drinks here. What do you got on the table, Mike? Well, I've got... You already got an empty can.

23:36I know, I've got an empty can underneath my chair. Pick up those white claws, Mike. Also a full can. I've got a can here of Once Upon a Coconut, which is pure coconut water and pineapple, and that's it. It's pretty tasty. Once Upon a Coconut. Any relation to Once Upon a Farm, the brand? That would be a negative. No. This brand's been around for a little while. Yeah. We've had it. I'm surprised there aren't more brands with the Once Upon a. What else is there? Once Upon a what? I feel like that's two more than I thought would exist. Once Upon a beet jerky? This is their pineapple flavor here. And they asked if I'd try the other flavors.

24:12I said no. And then I think they're on the way. So that's good. Okay. What's that? That's not Once Upon a coconut. This is called the Beach Ball. It is a cold brewed white tea with its organic low sugar antioxidants. And this is the grapefruit basil mint flavor, or basil if you prefer. 15 calories, 40 milligrams of caffeine per serving, and sounded just delightful. So I'm going for it. And so the name is Beach Ball. So it sounds very summery. Yep. It's delicious. It looks like it could be a pickleball beverage. Probably is. Yeah. Dying from the popcorn. I'm coughing. Do you need a beverage? You know, all I brought is this Arizona hard tea and a sledgehammer.

24:57Do you want this once upon a coconut? It's not open. Sure. Actually, that's a perfect pair. Yeah, exactly. That's a perfect pair. It's a perfect pair. Let's have a little popcorn. Craven's on vacation over there. There you go. Well, while Craven's on vacation, sipping some coconut water, I want to talk about Mina. Mina is a brand of Moroccan-based delicacies. It's a minority-owned business, and they do an amazing job. They market olives. They market shakshuka starters. They market olive oil. And recently they added... So many good words you just mentioned. Recently added a line of stews and soups that are based on traditional recipes.

25:39There are four of them. The one I'm holding in my hand is a Moroccan lentil stew. Then they have a Moroccan chickpea and lentil soup, Moroccan chickpea stew, and a Moroccan white bean stew. These all look amazing. They're in these 10-ounce pouches that you can microwave or boil. So they look like they have maybe that dozen cousins' ease to preparing them? Yes, yes. And I'm embarrassed to say I haven't tried these yet, but I wanted to share them with you guys so we could all eat them at the same time. Are they vegetarian? Yes, I believe they're all vegetarian. I can double check on that. Yes, they're all vegan.

26:16on the back we have non-gmo vegan gluten-free and bpa free across the back so heat and eat that looks great yeah yeah and this is the kind of stuff like a dozen cousins mina and fio i think i'm pronouncing that correctly f-i-l-l-o all market these ready to eat or ready to heat meals uh in these pouches i just i love love that this category is expanding and whole foods does as well because these products entered whole foods market global flavors category and uh yeah you should be able to find these think about this category when we were kids just the ready easy to prepare stuff and how it was then versus how it is now it's so much better now i mean all those all those brands that are uh local whole foods here are like super picked over like people buy that stuff quick yeah i i bet they'll be buying this stuff quick too yeah i was going down the whole foods aisle of like ready to heat meals and things like that And Somos was pretty picked over.

27:17They have some great ready to heat rices. They have a Mexican street corn rice. Also, I've been buying Omsom noodles every week. And it's been like literally battling people to grab them off the shelf. Really? Yeah. You had a fight in the aisles over Omsom? Yeah, there's people. I'm like grabbing one while there's like two other people waiting to grab one. You know, they have knife earrings. Maybe you should take those with you. Oh, geez. Don't advocate violence, Mike. Sorry. I just might just look a little more dangerous. I pictured Jackie shoving an old woman who was shopping. It's like one of those little push carts.