The Secret To Scaling Cult Brands? It's All About The Sauce.

0:10Ari Raz:Hello, friends. I'm Ray Lateef, and you're tuned in to Taste Radio, the number one podcast for entrepreneurs, makers, and innovators in the food and beverage industry. They started with a cult following. Now they're taking over the country. In this episode, Ari Raz, CEO of the Coconut Cult, talks about the brand's long-awaited launch at Target and the community-powered creativity fueling its rise. Later, we're joined by Star Edwards, the co-founder of Bitchin Sauce, who shares how a farmer's market dip turned into a national phenomenon, why she's branching into new categories and her bold advice for entrepreneurs.

0:59Ari Raz:Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now, I am supremely honored to be sitting down with the one and only Ari Raz, the CEO of the Coconut Cult. Ari, it's great to see you. Great to see you, Ray. Thank you for hosting us at this amazing event, Naturally San Diego at the Puesto at the headquarters. That's right. This is not the headquarters of Puesto, though. This is just the name of the building that we're in.

1:22Starr Edwards:This was a military barracks at a time that got converted into what you see here, which is restaurants and little boutique shops. Yeah.

1:29Ari Raz:Yeah. One that has flowing amounts of margaritas and tacos here. Absolutely. Yes. It looks like everyone is having just an incredible time. So you're the president of Naturally San Diego. Yes. You've been at it for how long now? About five years. Five years. Yeah. I dare say this is the preeminent chapter of the Naturally Network and perhaps the best local organization out there, just bar none. Thank you. Congratulations on everything you've done. I mean, if you look out the window here, it's a testament to what you guys have created. So well done, Ari. Thank you so much.

2:04Starr Edwards:We're very proud of what we've built. And we couldn't have done it without the city and the people who live here and all the amazing brands that were either founded here or the entrepreneurs who moved here to start brands. It's all a beautiful community and honestly very inspiring.

2:19Ari Raz:And shout out to Renee Solaris, who is the executive director of Naturally San Diego. Things are going well.

2:25Starr Edwards:Thank you.

2:26Ari Raz:Things are going well at the Coconut Cults as well. And I am so happy because I was in Target the other day and I saw the Coconut Cults for the first time. And it was your debut at that retailer. And not only was it your debut at the retailer, it was the debut of your minis. these four ounce cups of the Coconut Cult that come in three varieties. We've already been raving about these on Taste Radio. Talk about the origins of this and what you're trying to do with this launch of smaller size cups. Absolutely.

2:58Starr Edwards:Yeah, no problem. So the Coconut Cult minis were a dream about four and a half years in the making.

3:05Ari Raz:I'm sure there are some folks in our audience who somehow are not familiar with the Coconut Cult. What do you guys do?

3:10Starr Edwards:We make probiotic coconut yogurt that is completely clean label. So really all the ingredients on the label are whole food ingredients. And we ferment our coconut cream with a unique blend of 16 strains of very functional probiotics. So that every ounce of Coconut Cult has about 50 billion CFUs of probiotics. realistically this is a yogurt that is used by many as their daily probiotic supplement for gut health but also a host of many other benefits due to the unique strains that we

3:47Ari Raz:use in this yogurt and so the development of these cups these four ounce minis i would think has been a long time in the making absolutely the coconut cult is a mainstay in natural retailers You go into a Whole Foods, you're going to see it. You go to a Sprouts, you go to an Erwan, obviously, you're going to see it. Going into Target, that's a big move. And from what I know of the company, what I know of you is you are patient and thoughtful on how you grow. Why was the timing right? How long has this product been in development? How long have you been in negotiations with Target? Sure.

4:20Starr Edwards:So about four and a half years ago, we started to talk about creating a four-ounce version of Coconut Cult. And you can imagine that when you're just in ideation mode of a new concept, that product could go in so many different directions. Right. And ultimately, where we landed was, you know, we don't want to make a different type of yogurt. We don't want to make some new product that Coconut Cult has now, for instance, a diluted yogurt with less probiotics. Right. That's not what we're about. So what we landed on was we want to take the eight ounce jars that our customers know. These are eight ounce glass jars.

5:06Starr Edwards:They're eight ounce glass jars and shrink them down into a format that would allow us to bring the coconut cult down in price to a more accessible price point. so that more people can access it, can try a variety of flavors, and really discover what it is that so many people have fallen in love with. And with these minis, we're able to get the price down to a very reasonable$3.99 per four ounces. And for anybody who knows the Coconut Cult, you would know that typically our jars, our eight-ounce jars, sell between$9.99 to$11.99, depending on what part of the country you're in. So for us to be able to really shrink down that price point to a more accessible level without sacrificing the quality of the ingredients, the functional nature of the probiotics and the yogurt itself, and delivering what I think is one of the best Coconut Cult experiences to date, it truly is a marvelous product and it's a very intentional product at that.

6:12Ari Raz:Why was Target the right retailer for this rollout?

6:14Starr Edwards:So I have personal experience working with Target from my time at Once Upon a Farm.

6:19Ari Raz:You are the co-founder, one of the co-founders of Once Upon a Farm as well.

6:22Starr Edwards:One of the co-founders of Once Upon a Farm. So I have plenty of experience working with Target. I know the Target customer. I know that there's certain categories of premium CPG that do extraordinarily well at Target. I know that there's a customer there for a product like this. So, you know, going into the development of this product, from day one, I went in with the mindset that this was going to be the product that launched us in Target. And Target has been such a phenomenal partner to work with, primarily because they knew they were going to be the exclusive launch partners for these items that we have put so much work into.

7:04Starr Edwards:They gave us national distribution from the get-go, along with a five-week off-shelf for the launch. And all of that has honestly led to the product taking off in sales beyond our wildest imaginations. So we're all very, very excited and enthusiastic about the launch and how it's been going.

7:26Ari Raz:It's taking everything from me not to rip open this banana cream pie variety, which I've already eaten. It's so freaking good. It also comes in a lemon meringue variety and a organic berry basket variety. And all of them taste just incredible. You didn't have these at your pop-up in New York. No, we did not. And, you know, your pop-up in New York is something I want to talk about. You have some of your felt art from that pop. You know, getting the word out there about your brand is so important. Getting people to know what you're doing and why they should be buying your product is really tough, but it's so critical to being able to scale.

8:12Ari Raz:Pop-ups are a great way to do that. Sometimes it can be expensive. Yes. Sometimes they can be like a good idea that's not executed well. Sure. How did you make sure that you were creating a pop-up that would actually resonate with the right people, the right audience?

8:27Starr Edwards:Well, first of all, we put a lot of intention into the timing of the pop-up and the location. So we decided to do it during New York Fashion Week in Soho, which was a great call because it's super. If you're ever in New York and Soho during Fashion Week, you'll see it is the streets are just flooded. So even if you go in with your pop up with no awareness, no marketing beforehand, you're guaranteed to get plenty of foot traffic. Interesting. Just by the numbers of people who descend upon Soho. So now what we decided to put together was what we called the Collab Lab. So we rented out a 1 ,500-square-foot space that had an initial lobby, and you walk into the lobby area, and you basically create the parfait of your dreams.

9:17Starr Edwards:So you can choose between four different coconut cult flavors and about 30 different toppings from brands like Simple Mills, you know, Midday Squares, you name it. natural CPG brand we love with clean ingredients, you could put it on a yogurt. Then once you make your parfait, you go into the next area where we had our felt art marketplace. So lining the shelves, we had about 45 different brands. Some of them are represented here, brands like Olipop. We had Malk. We had Costa Rina Olive Oil, Midday Square, so many brands, Simple Mills, but basically felt representations of their products lining the shelves.

9:56Starr Edwards:We had a custom pop-a-shot for people to play. We had a custom claw machine for people to play where they could win the felt art. And then we had different miniature activations. For the first couple days, for instance, we did an activation with Malk where people could make a Malk shake using coconut cult. We then had a dirty soda bar where people could pull draft Olipop and mix it with our yogurt and make their own dirty soda. We did a fishwife activation where we created fishwife tacos topped with Cleveland Kitchen sauerkraut, which was incredible. I mean, so many different activations. And what it really represented for us was this coming together of all these like-minded brands that are pushing clean, healthy, real food out to the world.

10:48Starr Edwards:And we wanted to just celebrate them in a space. And we were able to do that for about two weeks. And every day we had over a thousand attendees walk through the doors. So it really was a magical, you know, once in a lifetime experience. It got a lot, a lot of attention on, you know, TikTok and Instagram. A lot of content creators showed up. Our founder, Noah, who's a content creator himself, invited a lot of New York content creators. They even did a panel at the pop-up, which was very special. So, you know, it was really just a way for us to celebrate our friendships in the community, but also just give people this very broad introduction to the world that we live in and the fact that really, you know, at the end of the day, it is a community and that's how we think about it.

11:38Yeah.

11:38Ari Raz:We're kind of coming full circle here. It's all about community, whether it's here at Naturally San Diego and everything that you do for the community locally. And I think just the industry as a whole. When one brand wins, we all win. When one brand gets acquired for$2 billion, it's a good thing for everyone. I think it shows that good can happen when you do the right thing, right? And good can happen when you're pushing the bigger legacy players to adopt better ingredients, to embrace new formulations that are healthier and better for people in general. Absolutely. Yeah. Ari, thank you so much for taking the time.

12:17Ari Raz:Thank you, Ray. Thanks so much for everything you're doing. I know you're a wanted man down there, but I really appreciate you doing this. Thank you. Absolutely. Wouldn't have it any other way. Thanks, Ray. Thank you. Thank you.

12:29Ari Raz:Hey, folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now, I am supremely honored to be sitting down with Star Edwards, who is the co-founder of Bitchin' Sauce. Star, it's great to see you.

12:39Starr Edwards:Thank you, Ray. Good to see you, too.

12:41Ari Raz:Bitchin' Sauce is one of the most incredible companies of the last 10 years. It really is. Thank you. I mean, it's an almond dip brand, number one. You know, how many people would have thought an almond dip brand would be nationally sold at every retailer in the country. The name of it, and we talked about this last time, could you actually sell a brand? Could you actually have the word bitching in every major retailer in the country? Turns out, yes. Not only that, you've gone into so many different formats and now new categories that this is not something I could have expected. Did you have a sense that this brand would be where it is today when you first started out?

13:20Starr Edwards:I will answer this by saying I've been so delightfully surprised every time. I'm like, oh my gosh, the ceiling of this brand is so much further than what I thought. I was so excited when it was, oh, we sold 50 sauces at the farmer's market. I thought that was incredible. And then it was like 500 sauces at the farmer's market. I was like, there's no way. And even just getting into stores was insane to me. So as we continue to grow the brand, you know, I'm trying to navigate through a lot of, like you said, you know, this is an almond dip. Who expected for people to like an almond dip this much that it could go nationwide?

13:55Starr Edwards:That's insane. Yeah. But being able to also then be like, all right, well, what else do we got? What else do we like? What else tastes good? And that's been a really fun journey, especially in the past like 18 months where we're unleashing things.

14:07Ari Raz:And your almond dips all taste amazing. How many varieties do you have at this point?

14:11Starr Edwards:We got like 27. We're getting Baskin Robbins with it. Okay. We have a flavor graveyard.

14:19Ari Raz:Before we get to these amazing new products that you brought to the table here, I want to talk about something that is very specific and personal to you, which is a cookbook.

14:28Starr Edwards:Yes.

14:28Ari Raz:You just launched a cookbook.

14:29Starr Edwards:I launched a cookbook.

14:30Ari Raz:Yes. Tell us all about that.