Unpacking The Aura, Hiyo & Alani Deals. Plus, We Get 'Fair' & 'Passionate'.

26:47And I think that's what the nothing is. The something is the incredible liquid. Definitely the nothing is the Tottenham in him. What a guy. I love Oliver. He's a good dude. Yeah. That's phenomenal, by the way. Something and nothing, a great representation of a mid-calorie soda. Yep. That's made with premium ingredients and tastes amazing. 10 grams of sugar. Phenomenal taste. This one's the ginger and key lime. Yeah, that stuff's good. And it says premium soda on it. I mean, it is what it is. It's amazing. That's the something. That is something. It's something. So good. Do we have some snacks over there?

27:20We do. We got time for a snack? We do. We do. So Quinn, which is a maker of gluten-free pretzels and snacks, they just introduced a new PB &J berry-filled pretzel. Sounds delightful. Everyone's seen the peanut butter-filled pretzels. So Quinn, I have never seen this before, Quinn with their PB &J berry pretzel. So let's break these open. Can I take a picture? All right, take it easy. Take the picture here. Come on. B, B, E, and J. Okay. You want to open it? You can open it. Do they have a pepperoni pizza flavor? No, they don't. They don't. Okay, let me open this up. So, thinking combos here, you know.

28:04While I'm doing this. While you're eating those, I have a beverage that I'm washing down this protein. What do we got? Donut with. It's called Ginza. It's a sparkling ginseng tonic. This one is ginseng and Korean pear, and it's only 20 calories. It's caffeine free. It's really delicious. And the packaging is really nice. This feels like an art project as well. It looks like it. It uses Korean ginseng, which helps sharpen focus and fights brain fog. Very clean tasting, which is nice. That's a beautiful package, Jackie. I love that can. It is beautiful. Yeah. It has a very modern art vibe to it.

28:44Art Deco, right? It's not really Art Deco. It's reminding me of Miami. It's a little Miami-ish in terms of its color scheme, like a little 1980s. I would almost call it... You just call Miami 1980s. No, it has that Miami Vice vibe. And almost like a Pete Mondrian kind of vibe as well. Oh, yes, yes. And I love the fact that it's a beverage brand that's positioned as a modern ginseng beverage. There was a brand, I think it's still out there, called Ginseng Up. Remember that brand? Oh, yeah. from Worcester. Yeah. Yeah. This one, yeah, I like what you're doing. Yeah, it feels very current. And like a young person like myself would pick it up because it's, the callouts are really great too.

29:24Okay, all right. Now John's - I like how Jackie rubs it in that she's still young. I've got to remind you all. Just, you keep doing that while you can, Jackie. You didn't need to, all you need is to know that she's going to Mardi Gras. Okay, now. These PB &J things are pretty good. They pair quite nice with the Purfi pepperoni pizza, by the way. No more of these because we can't even know if we're crunching. So good. We got to crunch. Yeah. You know what we need? More cowbell. Okay. This kind of wrote itself, didn't it? This brand. I saw this in the fridge. It's called Cowball. It's a hydration beverage.

29:57It comes in a 16.9 ounce plastic PET bottle. I believe it's a PET bottle anyway. Described as nothing artificial. 35 calories per bottle. Nine grams of added sugar. This is their grape variety. Let's give this a whirl. it's a clear liquid. I thought there was a hint of color, but there's no color to this. That's just the label. Tasty. That's pretty good. Yeah. It has a bit of stevia in it, but you don't get that overwhelming stevia flavor. It kind of tastes like a vitamin water kind of. Yeah, I'll give you that. It's in the Gatorade family. On some level, vitamin water or bi. It's definitely tasty.

30:40Yeah, it's very good, actually. A lot of B vitamins in here, 120 % of your daily B6 and 420 % of your daily B12. Oh, thank goodness. Do you want to try this? It's good. Oh, you got a cup for me? Yeah. Oh, sure. Okay. There you go. Well done, Cowbell. And obviously the marketing rights itself. I need more Cowbell. Ding, ding. Yes, exactly. Or doop, doop. All right, Jack, mute it, Cowbell. Jackie's digging in for more, I think, perhaps. Yeah, I have one more beverage, which we talked about Hi-Yo and I got Oh-Hi. Oh, yummy. another uk-based brand cowbell's good is it a uk baby's yeah it's funny because i saw that it has magnesium in it and before i realized it was a uk brand i was like i remember in europe there was just so many magnesium brands but yeah this stuff is delicious i love that it's just like a hint of like functionality it's like really just tasty sparkling water pretty sure they're going to be at Expo West.

31:38Looking forward to seeing them. I was engaging with the founder of the company. Expo West that I'll be going to, gratefully. Yeah, he is making a big push into the United States this year. Ojai has been sold in the UK for, I believe, two or three years, and 2025 is when he's coming stateside. So excited to see that brand in more places. Yeah, I saw him in Sprouts. So he made it. There you go. So I kind of want to gauge your feelings on this subset of a very popular category, which is pasta and protein pasta. Now, there's a lot of them out there, obviously. Bonza, one of the OG brands in this space.

32:22And Brahmi, which is a maker of pasta that is made with Italian wheat and lupini beans, sent us some of their products. and it looks really good. There's 21 grams of protein and nine grams of fiber per 3.5 ounce serving. Nice. Feels like a lot. It does. Are you eating pasta? Are you looking for products like these? Jackie, I feel like you are. Yeah. I honestly eat protein pasta like at least once or twice a week. Also eat it. It's just such an easy meal. You have the protein pasta and you don't really have to add anything else to it except for maybe some veggies, but you don't have to have some protein with it.

33:03Do you feel like you're missing out on the flavor or... Over the years, you haven't realized Jackie's like a simple cook. She's just like, I want to make something simple and delicious and nutritious. That's what she likes. I guess what I'm asking is, do you feel like there's any compromise between what you've traditionally eaten as pasta and what you're eating with protein pasta? Is there any difference in taste, texture, flavor? I would say a little bit. Also, you have to figure out like the timing. Like if you slightly overcook it, it just becomes mushy. Like I usually like run it under cold water.

33:36So, you know, you get that firmness al dente still. But yeah, it's definitely, I mean, I think I've been eating it so much that I forgot what real pasta tastes like. It's a little chewier, right? Yeah. It's a little bit chewier. Yeah. A little chewier. Yeah. Well, hopefully they get better and better at the texture of the, I mean, I think this does look good. This is a beautiful package. Number one, it's a slathered in tomato sauce. That's going to taste amazing. Yeah. Slather it in tomato sauce. Slather. Okay, slather. Tomato sauce. All right. Mike's going to talk about something, and then I'm going to finish off with a dessert.

34:06I got two to talk about. Two to talk about. I'm going to talk about this one first, though. This is Melissa Traverse's favorite brand, one of her favorite brands, Wild Planet, which is a maker of tuna, sustainable tuna. And they've decided to, I think maybe, this is kind of like a fishwife and Hay Day Canning had a baby or something. It's like, this one's white bean salad. So they're putting white bean salad in with the tuna. It's lunch in a can and I'm here for it. It's really tasty. I had this yesterday for a snack. Nice. It's kind of like Scout when they had those like tuna fish where you mix it with some goodies in it and you got like an instant tasty snack.

34:43100%. And, you know, another one that's in that similar vein is Scout. That stuff's tasty as well. So, you know, good for the category. 340 calories and lots of protein. 340 calories? You got that as a snack? That is a snack, yeah. I'm an athlete, Ray. All right. What else do you got there? You got one more thing? Oh, yeah. So I've got these. We met these guys in Miami. Make this Hungry Boy, which I think is an influencer brand. Don't know too much about it, but these flavors are ridiculous. They're hot sauces. This one is, I'll save this one for last. Well, I don't know what to save for last.

35:18Let's go first with this one. The strawberry donut. Strawberry maple syrup and jalapenos. It's one meter. One meter of heat. strawberry donut will graduate to the gut grenade i mean look the dog is the dog is having ibs you can see on the on the can or on the bottle here this one's green serrano peppers garlic and honey three meters wait ray and then let's let's end with the exorcist i mean pugs always look confused this one looks it's drooling so tomatillos chiles and smoked paprika there are other flavors as well These are the three that I brought to the show. Thanks so much for sending it along.

35:58Okay. Well, strawberry donut, maybe we don't need this Mars drink. So Mars, everyone knows what a Mars bar is. I found a can that is described as a Mars milk drink. It's a 200-liter can. Classic European beverage here. Classic. Not new, to be clear. It's not new. It's notable. We talk about new and notable products here. Notable to you. Notable to me. This is Turkish lettering or Turkish language all over this can. Let me just try this. Tastes like a milkshake. A very good one at that. There you go. Well done, Ray. Does anyone want any? No? I know what it tastes like. I'm good. I've had it before.

36:31I know what it tastes like. All right. 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. Visit Tasteradio.com slash insider to learn more. All right. It's time to get to our featured interviews for this episode, beginning with Alex Duong, the founder and CEO of Fair and Square, an emerging brand of gut-friendly crackers inspired by childhood favorites. I sat down with Alex at a recent networking event hosted by industry organization Naturally San Diego, where he discussed how his experience in the CPG industry has shaped his approach to brand building.

37:13He also talks about the importance of patience and staying true to core values as an early stage entrepreneur. Our interview with Alex is followed by one with Lena Zarofsky, the founder of Passion Joy, a new brand of sparkling beverages with passion fruit at its core. As part of our conversation, Lena shared her vision for expanding distribution of Passion Joy in the U.S. and internationally, with plans to target major retailers and eventually compete on a global scale.

37:48Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now I'm honored to be sitting down with Alex Duong, who is the founder and CEO of Fair and Square. Alex, great to see you. Thanks for having me. Fair and Square, I have spoken with you a couple of times and I remember you best as a participant in the Nosh Pitch Slam event a couple of years ago. And I thought you were amazing up on stage. And I love your brand. I love your brand name. for folks who aren't familiar, tell us all about Fair and Square. Yeah. Fair and Square makes gut-friendly versions of childhood favorites. Our first products were a Cheez-It and a Wheat Thin.

38:22And more recently, we've launched our graham crackers. So our hero ingredient is green banana flour, which is prebiotic, which supports your gut health, while also tasting incredible and very similar to wheat in texture. So when was the first time you entered the business? I started entering this business by being a buyer at Whole Foods. Okay. And I think that's where I saw the professionalism in fair and square. When I saw you up on stage and I saw your brand and I saw your products, I felt like there was some foundation behind this. It did make sense. And I think typically that means you have a leg up.

38:56And typically it means that you have an opportunity to understand how the business works more so than other early stage founders. But would you consider it an advantage? Has it really helped you as much as I think it would? I think it helps from the advantage of like knowing that you have a strong foundation to lean on, right? In terms of, you know, my price structure, where I want to go, how I tell the story, why there's gaps in the category. Where sometimes it is not so helpful is, you know, it's like the smartest kid doesn't always create the best business. To be good at business, sometimes you need to lean into creativity and faith and conviction.

39:30So that I would say it has established the foundation very, very well. but that still doesn't mean that as a founder, like, you know, sometimes you don't lack conviction, right? Like, oh man, this is really going to work. And that's when you double down. And I think things change from year to year. So what might've been trendy at Whole Foods, what might've been interesting to a retail buyer at Whole Foods 12 years ago might be very, very different than it is today. Yes. And how have you navigated those trends? How have you adjusted your pitch, your positioning to meet the needs of the modern consumer and the retail buyer who buys for them?

40:05I think first and foremost, one of the most important lessons I learned as a buyer is to think about the customer and think about how do you be five years too early for whatever retailer you want to be in, right? So for example, Thrive and Erewhon are two big names here in Southern California. I would consider them the early adopting retailers who are willing to bring brands on that have no retail presence and no track record at all. If that's where you want to go, you don't want to do the thing that's trendy now. Right. For example, like, you know, when I first started this company five years ago, everyone was saying, well, why aren't you keto?

40:43And I'm like, guys, if you're launching a keto product in 2022, you for sure missed the train. Right. I mean, totally. Yeah. Right. And so, like, you know, you want to be early into whatever you're getting into. It's not too early, but you want to be early because the earlier you are, the more you can kind of control your destiny. Versus if you're trying to ride this trend that's already matured, by 2022, you're on the downswing of keto. There's no momentum to be built. Right. But the scary prospect is you're going to have to wait and you're going to have to be patient. And that means that you're going to have to suffer.

41:22Yes. I mean, how patient do you really have to be, though? How patient can you be to the point where, yes, you got to wait, perhaps, but you got to keep that train moving somehow? So I think you're correct in that patience is really key as a founder. I would say how patient you're willing to be is probably correlated with how much cash you have to burn. Sure. Because you can accelerate things in your impatience if you have a lot of money to burn. But I think a classic brand, which has been featured with the Nosh crew over time, was Kodiak Cakes. Where they took forever to get to their first million.

41:58And then when everything was lined up, the thing went gangbusters in a couple years. I think the story is they took seven years for them to get to their first million, I think, as a narrative. And then they got to$100 million in the next five or whatever. And I think there's something really important to be learned there. in that like on average, you don't want to be a hundred million dollar brand in a couple of years because the problem is you get there, you're not going to have the money to support it from the bottom falling out in year four and year five. And that's the danger in this industry, right?

42:29It's like, look, food is incredibly trendy. And if you tap into something that's too trendy, do you have the ability to make sure that you grew the brand and you grew what you did to mean something to the customer beyond the trend? And if you don't do that, The bottom falls out. Yeah. Can you iterate while you're waiting, though? Can you iterate while you're being patient? Or as you mentioned, you know, can you just hold out until it makes sense to the consumer? I think you can iterate, but you have to figure out what your core pillars are. Right. So, for example, like we're gut friendly. I think you can iterate to the sense that you can change the ingredients.

43:06Potentially you can change the mix, you can change the flavors. But I can't be like, you know what, we're going to go full gluten. because then you've lost the core that makes you different. We wrangle with this a lot in terms of our messaging, in terms of like, okay, like where do we cross, right? For example, one of the pieces that we've, you know, been wrangling with a little bit more is what is the communication like for allergen friendly, right? I mean, there's been a lot of brands, you know, over the time, whether that's partake in this generation, in previous generations, enjoy life. And look, Mandalas isn't stupid, right?

43:39But they couldn't figure out how to make Enjoy Life any bigger. In fact, Enjoy Life no longer exists, basically. I think there is this thought process of, is the thing you believe is your core big enough? And then more importantly, I think in our souls and as founders, is it big enough for what we want? Not what your investors want, but what you want. There's nothing wrong with having a$10 million brand that generates a million dollars of EBITDA on your own terms, on your own timeline. and it took you six or seven years to get there, you print a million dollars a year, it's not the worst thing in the world.

44:15No, it's not. But we've been taught you have to exit and you have to get to that humongous number, even though it's extremely rare. It doesn't happen a lot. In fact, I think when you think about Simple Mills, talk about a long time, about 12 years or so for them to get to their exit and an amazing brand, but it wasn't an overnight success. And all the people who are seeing that and saying, oh, well, I can do the same thing. Well, you better be ready to put in the hard work. Because if you think about Caitlin, I mean, she was doing those demos at Whole Foods every day, multiple times a day. She was really doing that legwork that it took to get through that first year.

44:52So yeah, to your point, it's going to take time. But if you have a passion for it, if you love it, if you're willing to eat, breathe, you know, do all the cliche things that people say, I mean, I really do feel like there could be a good outcome in the end. And if you're doing it on your own terms, as you mentioned, I say this a lot, and investors have been telling me the same thing. What's wrong with having a$10 million,$20 million business? I mean, the days of creating $100 million, billion dollar businesses, far and few between, and they always were, really. I think even beyond that, there's this conversation of like, why do you do what you do as a founder?

45:27Exactly. Right. And I believe at its heart, the founders that have done really well in this space on average are activist founders. Yes. I'm doing this thing basically that I run as a for-profit that are funded by like-minded investors who basically want me to signal to move the needle in such a way that the massive corporation that has a category and product similar to mine might innovate their product to be just a little bit better. Right. And that's way more impactful than any money that you could spend. You could run a protest outside of Kellogg's facilities. and I don't know if that moves the needle as much as like proving that you can succeed selling a product in their same category.

46:06That's such a good point Alex and man it just blew my mind right there. Thank you so much for doing what you do and thanks so much for being with us on Taste Radio today. I really appreciate it. Good luck with everything going forward and please let us know how things are going because I'm seeing the future. The future looks good for Fair and Square. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

46:30Hey, folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now, I'm honored to be sitting down with Lina Zarofsky, who is the founder of Passion Joy. Lina, great to see you. Hello. Thank you for having me. And I'm very honored being here after BevNet. Yeah, absolutely. We first met you at BevNet Live winter 2024. You're on stage as part of the New Beverage Showdown. I thought you guys did an amazing job, you in particular. And people were really impressed with Passion Joy, the flavor, the positioning, the packaging. It felt like you guys did a really, really good job coming out of the gate with what you did.

47:03Thank you so much. Yeah. We worked very hard. We worked like maybe more than three years. It was a project. It was like a lot of work behind. But thank you for the opportunity being on the stage. And I think we did well. Yeah. Because our passion, joy, it's something different what people want to see. maybe it's not different, but it's something like people looking for drinking. I think it's very different. I had never seen a passion fruit centric beverage brand out there. And yes, you don't want to be tied specifically to one single ingredient. But I think that the beautiful part of your brand is that passion doesn't necessarily have to be specific to passion fruit.

47:50Yes, it's the key ingredient. But the idea of creating a brand that's part passion, part joy it felt like the whole thing kind of came together yes like a mom i'm always like looking like something healthy for my kids for myself i always been like watching calories you know like healthy lifestyle since i've been like moving to california and uh health is you know for me it's passion and i want everyone like uh drinking my beverage feeling like being healthy so this is like 100 % organic beverage. Passion fruit, it's origin from California. So everything has like, you know, like theme, everything has like goals.

48:30And when I was creating the product, I was like thinking about like what I would love to drink myself. Because you know, like I was watching calories, ingredients, I wanted something simple to drink, you know, do not think before like food after food like mixing like functioning i just want to drink i just want to relax i don't want to like overthinking you know just like simple drink you can enjoy it you can like mix with other drinks you can like give to your child you can drink by yourself when you feel like uh hot you want a refreshing also like a chemistry background and i've been like thinking about ingredients like a simple same thing but also refreshing so our beverage is refreshing organic beverage like for whole family for everyone and i think that's what you've created i think it's something that you don't necessarily have to be educated upon it's a it's a juice beverage yes not everyone knows what passion fruit is but if you taste it you taste this beautiful luscious drink that doesn't necessarily require you to know too too much about what's in there you just know from drinking it that it's probably going to be good for you yes and that's also low calories it's uh not like uh you know like everybody like looking for something like something new something you know like creative innovative but you know sometimes study like shows a lot you know like something like bad and good ingredients are something like you know when you're taking like for example stevia like something simple it works like for a long time so i think what we created what we put inside our drink it's very like healthy and due to studies You know what I mean?

50:11Yes. Because something new like sugar or something new, we don't know studies. Right. So it has to pass a couple of years like what we know. But our integrals are very simple and very tasty. And I think people on the BevNet really like it. A lot of people approached us and said, oh, really nice. Something refreshing, something new. And, you know, it means a lot for us. It's something new, something refreshing. Feedback, people who love our drink. It's very important because we want to give something back. And the feedback was very important for us. It was very important. We were pleased, like feeling the same, to being on the same page with our consumers, our followers.

50:57In terms of next steps, what are you trying to accomplish in 2025? What are the retailers you're trying to get into? And what do you need most help with at this point? so we try to put all our production to california we're trying to work a little bit with not to base in california and cells in california but we want to make bring popular in california region and spreads out like slowly but like very strongly and of course um based on my husband's experience he works with export a lot and of course our goal for now to make Passion Joy very popular in the US so our target consumers like maybe Jimbo Sprouts, Trader Joe's Whole Foods of course the big and the most famous market are one and let's see we also would love to being a part of BevNet in New York.

51:59We would love to be a sponsor. We would like to introduce our drink to East Coast. And surely and strongly, but you know, for example, my goal, it's not only the passion joy. We would like to make powerful passion joy move forward like abroad, like to Europe, to Middle East, to the everywhere. My dream is to make our drink very popular. Popular, healthy, something like very luxurious, well-done, organic beverage, American drink. To make popular, like Coca-Cola, Pepsi. Sure. So, you know, I'm dream big. I'm from Ukraine, you know, and I dream big. Yeah, well, if you're not dreaming big, you're probably thinking a little too small, right?

52:48I mean, you want your product to be something that a lot of people want to drink. I think that sometimes can be something that founders overlook, which is, yes, at launch, it's probably only going to be something that a handful of people drink. But at the end of the day, if everyone has an opportunity to try your product and love it, why not shoot for the stars? And I think that's something that Passion Joy has. Yeah, thank you to my husband. He's a hardworking person and he has a very good reputation abroad. so I think like a passion joy it's like kind of like our baby third baby no fourth I'm sorry so and based on his experience abroad I would love to but we don't have experience here in America so we do kind of we do like baby steps now yeah but I think we need a little like help because I think like passion joy it feels like we have a space it's missing like not a lot of products are there.

53:50It's simple. You can drink. It's healthy. Low calories. You can give to your child. I see a lot when you go to all supermarkets, you have a lot. You don't have simplicity. Right. Yes. Good point. Simple to make our drink popular in the US. This is my dream. The sky's the limit. Yeah. Well, one day at a time. I think the approach of going simple and straightforward is something that is refreshing. you know, so often we hear about the most innovative ingredients and formulations. But at the end of the day, I think consumers really do what you're talking about, which is simple refreshment. That's good for you.

54:28And I think that's what Passion Joy represents. Thank you so much. Yeah. Lena, thank you so much for taking the time to sit down with me. I really appreciate it. I hope you're enjoying the event. Thank you. Very cool. All right. Until next time. Of course. We'll see you soon. Thank you.

54:45that brings us to the end of this episode of taste radio thank you so much for listening taste radio is a production of bevnet.com incorporated our audio engineer for taste radio is joe cratchy our technical director is joshua pratt and our video editor is ryan galang our social marketing manager is amanda smerlinski and our designer is amanda huang just a reminder if you like what you hear on taste radio please share the podcast with friends and colleagues and of course we would love it if you could review us on the apple podcast app or your listening platform of choice check us out on instagram our handle is bevnet taste radio as always for questions comments ideas for future podcasts please send us an email to ask at taste radio.com on behalf of the entire taste radio team thank you for listening and we'll talk to you next time

55:42Thank you.