You Got Into Erewhon. Now What? Plus, The 'Madre' Of Kefir.

24:16Here, have a Yoohoo. All right. It's not really like Yoohoo. In fact, I think the color scheme is the flip, the reverse of Yoohoo. So you have a brown can with yellow font. So it's a Yoo-Hoo, but better for Yoo-Hoo. Yeah, well, I mean, they've got other flavors. It's a little smoky. Grab this, just the cold brew coffee one, too. What is the smoke from? Yeah, it is very smoky. What's the smokiness? Someone would have to look at the ingredients. Some charred cacao. Someone I could read. Someone who can't put my glasses on? Without glasses, yeah. Well, on the back here, it talks about biohacks. So you have fulvic minerals, you have B vitamins, you have L-theanine.

24:52I bet the fulvic minerals are where we get this. What does that even mean? It's good. I like this. I like the smokiness. It's definitely a differentiator. I haven't really tasted that in a coffee. Maybe I'm just not drinking enough biohack coffee, because I'm more of a coffee purist. But this stuff is really tasty. Yeah, it is really good. Again, you know, on the front of Canada, it talks about how it's natural biohacks. Natural biohacks is underneath the logo, which is vertical. B vitamins, L-theanine, fulvic minerals, mocha latte with almond milk. I love this product. where does it go from here in terms of attracting a mainstream audience I don't know I think you got to get rid of a lot of the stuff unfortunately that make it the reason why air one consumers would buy it so maybe you get the air one consumer but you're definitely not going to get the target consumer like it's pretty technical yeah like I don't even know what fulvic minerals are we'll have to do some research and report back that's the stuff that makes black water black Can I pause here?

25:52Can I ask you a question? So yes, it's really great to get into Erewhon as your first retailer. And yes, this would probably attract an Erewhon buyer. But if you stripped it down and just said it's flown a mocha latte with almond milk and maybe you put some of the buy hacking collets and left them on the back, wouldn't that be a slightly better approach? Or do you think that the Erewhon buyer has to see that in the front? I don't think it's just the Erwan buyer. It's just pointed differentiation. I mean, it is something that catches the eye. I mean, we're going to remember it, talk about it. I mean, I think other people will too.

26:28No, but I think other people will. This is a pretty clean label though, for the most part. Yeah, very clean. They found a way to put a lot of things on here, but you can read them all. And I guess the thing that I would say isn't my favorite is that they made flowing the hero and not, you know, something more, I don't know, the mocha latte isn't the hero here. They want you to see flowing first and then you're supposed to be drawn in by that. And then, oh, natural biohacks. And that's not really big enough if that's what you want someone to, like I'd say natural biohacks and coffee are the heroes here.

27:03And then you get drawn in, but I, you know, what do I know? Well, again, I think if you're talking about biohacks, how many people, what's household penetration for biohacking? I mean, how many people know what that is? Well, there's not, but at Erewhon. Yeah, right. But that's what I'm saying. Like, how important is it to get into Erewhon to the point where you have to put that in front of a can? Yeah, that makes sense. I think it's a stepping stone. Yeah, I think like a lot of brands maybe do things at the beginning and then they go into packaging iterations once they get a little bit of traction and then they enter into like other retailers and they're asking for certain things.

27:35You still have to make 50 ,000 cans of this though to start out. Yes, they have lots of friends. You have to drink a lot of these. So I already tasted it. And I want to be clear to the founders of Flowin, I think you have a great product. It's really tasty. Yeah, I think you've got a lot going on here. Like the liquid is the most important thing. Yeah, it tastes amazing. You've nailed this liquid. Totally. Speaking of friends, I made some new friends accidentally today. I took a picture of... Of course, not intentionally. Hey! Hey! Two nil, right? So I took a picture of Better Booch and in the background of the photo of Better Booch was Remember Kombucha.

28:12And the founders spied it on my Instagram. They're like, hey, we're in there too. And I was like, oh, so cool. So we had a conversation. They're going to send some to the office. So I picked some up. We picked some up when we were there to bring to the show to taste it. It's Remember is R-M-B-R. And this is like just a cool-looking can. And you can't see that it's kombucha very easily. It's like small at the top and the call-outs are on the side. And I think this is definitely an Erewhon-style can. Yeah, is that like two faces or is that a butterfly? It's like the electric company. It's a butterfly, but also two faces.

28:47That's cool. Okay, so RMBR, it stands for Real Memories, Better Rituals. So is it pronounced rimbar or is it pronounced? It's pronounced remember. It says on the side. Remember, okay. Okay, and this is their creamy bellini variety. It's made with orange peel and vanilla bean. Oh, this is good. And it's described as a functional kombucha. Okay, so this is a kombucha from Monica Watrous because this is— Tastes like grape soda. It's pretty good. Again, this is a kombucha from Monica that does not taste vinegary at all. And it says that on the side that it's not going to. This is—we tried the lavender butterfly pea flower.

29:20And now I really wanted to try this orange peel. No, no, no. What? You can't pour into the same cup. I can pour into the same cup because— All right. Orange peel. All the germs got splashed back into the can now. Oh, my God. Oh, I never even thought about that. Are you kidding me? Here, Jackie. Thank you for the germs. Yes. Oh, God. Right, you are ridiculous. I'm doing the same thing. You know, right, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Lost for words over here. That's a great Kelly Clarkson song. Anyway, the flavor is orange peel and vanilla bean, and it's phenomenal. Oh, the vanilla's nice.

29:57Don't you like it? Yeah. Do you guys want a bliss ball? No, what's a bliss ball? Yeah. I'm going to have to take some Tums after this. It's a source. chocolate bliss ball. What's a better for you version of Tums, by the way? There's two of them. Is there one? Right, take a bliss ball. No, I'm good. Thank you. Here you go. Jackie, bliss ball. Oh, Jesus. I guess I'm having a bliss ball. I hit another ball. Here you go, Jackie. Did you see that? Did you see that, Joe? For those not watching the video, a bliss ball was just popped out of its pouch and fell onto mic into a certain place that we can't mention on the show.

30:41Slow motion replay on that. You got coconut in your pants, Mike. You did mention it when you said Blizzball. Okay. We're kind of running amok here. So let's wrap up with It's Better For You. I didn't touch it yet. Okay. So this is WBS? Yeah. What do I stand for? It's like WCB. Okay. So WBS. Represent. it it's a single serve cookie it's made with eight grams of protein right on the front of pack four grams of fiber it's described as gluten-free vegan and low sugar it's a chocolate chip variety it's just like a big cookie it looks fluffy it does it it's um dense it's a dense cookie and it's 160 calories for half and 320 for the entire cookie are you gonna eat some or just I keep pawing it.

31:32I was looking at it. But I still don't understand what WBS stands for. Well, we should read the label and find out. A wicked big snickerdoodle cookie. A wicked big snickerdoodle kid. Not bad. Okay. Are you going to try some? I'm going. Oh, yeah. I was trying to find out what WBS means. Maybe it means. World's best snacks. Oh, I like that. That could be it. That's a good platform. It must be somewhere. Do you see a website on there? Oh, Wellness by Samantha. Oh. Wellness by Samantha.com. Okay. Thank you, Samantha. Thank you, Samantha. All right. So apparently you got a thumbs up across the board here, and everyone just had their protein content for the day.

32:12No steak for you. Anyone want a little more pizza to wine? We got to go. That's our cue. That's the Luke Wilson. I got to go. I got to go. 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 interview for this episode. That's with Nicola Hartz, the founder of UK-based functional beverage company Agua de Madre, and Leon Pullen, the brand's managing director. Launched in 2017, the brand markets water kefir and ginger and turmeric shots that are distributed throughout England, including at Whole Foods stores, and are also sold direct to consumer via its website.

33:04The products are made in small batches at Agua de Madre's fermentary and production facility in East London. I met up with Nicola and Leon in London for a conversation about the origins of the brand and their approach to formulation, consumer education, and distribution, as well as the opportunity they see for retail in the United States.

33:26Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now I'm honored to be sitting down with Nicola Hart and Leon Pullen of Agua de Madre. Nicola, great to see you. Hi, thank you for having us. Thanks so much for joining us. Leon, how are you? I'm good, thank you. Thanks for having us down today, Ray. Very pleased to be here. This is a brand that we came across at the Cheers, the Drink Summit event that was held earlier this week. And Agua de Madre is positioned and described as a water kefir, or you can call it a water kefir, depending on how you want to pronounce the word. How long have you been in business, Nicola?

33:59I started the kitchen table in 2017, but we built a fermentary in 2019. A fermentary? Yeah, absolutely. Where is that? On the first, in Hackney, which is in East London, which is a seriously trendy area. Okay. And Leon, for folks who are not familiar with what a water kefir is, what is it? Water kefir is a fermented beverage and it is made by fermenting lemon, ginger and figs for three days with kefir crystals. And what's fascinating about these kefir crystals is that they were found growing on the side of a cactus in Mexico 2 ,000 years ago. So they're completely natural forming yeast and bacteria culture which helps kickstart fermentations.

34:39And it's what our secret ingredient is to be able to ferment our drink and create the most delicious products on the market. And everything you produce or everything you sell is self-made, self-produced. Yeah. Sometimes that's a good thing. Sometimes that's a difficult thing because in food and beverage in particular, there's a production side of things that usually people offload to a co-manufacturer and then they just focus on sales and marketing. Folks who do both end up having essentially two different businesses, which can kind of be complicated. How many people work on the production side of things?

35:12Well, I mean, we have around, well, sort of between five and ten on production. But, you know, we can't give this to anybody else to make because it's taken a long time to develop a way to stabilize water kefir. It's supposed to be much more, much less stable than kombucha, say. So we've done a lot of NPD. And what are the health benefits? What are the functional benefits? Well, it's probiotics. It's full of lactobacillus. And so it's good for gut health. So it's good absolutely for gut health, yeah. Yeah, the outside of each of those grains, which are found growing on cactuses, have billions of probiotic bacteria that grow on the outside of those.

35:48So when putting them into the fermentation process, they then get busy in the water and start the fermentation. So it's a very important part of our process. But actually looking after those grains is quite a task in itself. Every week they need to be fed and nurtured and washed. So we call them bambinos. And yeah, that's part of our craft. I don't think we could hand that over to someone else because it takes a real skill that Nicola has spent years and years crafting to keep them alive and in very good health. I mean, the drinks called Agua de Maggi means mother's water because it's made with a mother culture.

36:21And this is, you know, these beautiful jelly crystals here, which is much prettier than kombucha mother culture. This is our SCOBY. So it's all about nurturing our guts, nurturing our mother culture, which we've grown. I started in 2017 with literally this much, with a small handful. And every time you feed it with organic fruits and sugars, it grows. And so we've now got tons of it. Yeah, that looks much more palatable than kombucha scoby, which I still can't go over the look and feel of that thing. Scary, isn't it? Like scary mushroom, isn't it? It does. But the result, the resulting beverage is quite delicious.

36:56It's good. We're quite different from kombucha, though. I mean, apart from the health benefits, which we have more probiotics, it's much less vinegary it's much less acv kind of taste profile and it's kind of more of a yeasty mouthfeel so we're kind of considered similar siblings but we're not we think we're we think we're a more accessible taste do you lead with functional benefit or do you lead with taste when you're when you're talking to people about the brand that's a good question it depends who we're talking to because we have a load of nutritionists who are really interested in functional but but as far as everyday and the way we're branding it it's absolutely about the taste it's about being refreshing alternative i mean obviously it's an upsell of water or san pellegrino but you know and also there's no kind of question there's it's just it's just if anybody's going to spend money on a drink we're going to go out and even in grab and go you want to add value don't you and this is a very quick easy way to add value and you don't feel like you're having a medicine with kombucha you've got the brown jar you know kind of drinks glass bottles and this feels much more accessible.

37:58Yeah, I recall when kombucha was really having its heyday in the United States, it was the mid 2010s, 2014, 2015. It seemed like everyone wanted to be in the kombucha business. And then the children of kombucha started to emerge, brands that were selling probiotic sodas and water kefirs or kefirs and drinking vinegars and things like that. And it It all felt very interesting to natural channel consumers, but it was a more challenging sell to mainstream consumers until they started to use the word soda and started to really position these products as sodas, not using the word kefir, kefir, vinegar, or probiotic in some cases.

38:41Those were included or maybe inherent to the formulation of these products, but they were not marketed as such. in the UK I wonder I mean is kefir kefir I mean is it something that people are familiar with and seeking out no I mean it's early days it's definitely early days we're definitely the market leader it's not medicinal like kombucha and but I think people are surprised because dairy kefir is so large here now we're kind of lucky that people who don't want to have dairy we're a kind of fantastic vegan alternative but it's a different occasion to drink as well we're not just kind of early morning probiotics.

39:16We're in place of alcohol. You can drink it any time of day. We don't have tea in it like kombucha, so it's not going to get the caffeine rush. You just get the kind of natural, you know, yeasty probiotic hit. Yeah, it's funny actually, on the way back from Bread and Jam, we're going through the tube station and we noticed me and Paul four different dairy kefir brands all fighting for advertising space on the billboards and all the way up the escalators. And we're thinking, This is absolutely astonishing that there's still no dairy-free alternative that is capitalising on this incredibly booming space.

39:51And water kefir has all the same or similar health benefits within the drink. So there's such a big market there to tap into with a much more accessible product. Because who wants to be gulping down yoghurt like every five minutes? Exactly. And all the lactobacillus that live in water kefir also live in your gut. So it's much easier to absorb. whereas kombucha is more acetic, acetylbacillus, which is harder to absorb. So if you want to get geeky about it, the health benefits, who've had it studied, are kind of easy to see and note. Do the dairy-based producers ever give you any kind of grief about using the term kefir or kefir?

40:26Never. Never. I mean, it's interesting, isn't it? Because it's a thing, water kefir. I mean, you just look on Wikipedia, but it has had other names as well. It's been called Tibicos in Mexico. So it's gone Japanese, bees in Japan. It was all over the world it's had historically. We're talking about a drink that's at least 2 ,000 years old. So it's a heritage product. I mean, I'm sure I'm looked into kombucha. It's very commonly known in the UK as water kefir, and that is the angle that we're going down. But yeah, just to jump back to the taste, I think what really sets us aside is that fermentation process.

41:01I think everyone's raced to the market with these prebiotic drinks because it's like a cookie cutter like any other drink. You can just create the recipe and send it to any manufacturer and they can knock it up quite quickly. But with our product, it's a full fermentation process like brewing or similar to kombucha where it takes days to actually create the product. And a great example of that flavor development is I like to use a sourdough loaf, for example. If you compare that to a hovis or your typical white loaf that you get from the supermarket, that fermentation process that you get from creating a sourdough gives it this huge complexity of flavor and depth that you would just never find in any other loaf that you went into the supermarket for and our fermentation process adds a huge level of flavor to our drinks which we think that people won't be able to find elsewhere I mean the reason I started the company was because I couldn't find any grown-up drinks I didn't want to drink much alcohol anymore and I couldn't find anything that wasn't either sweet you know too sweet to drink I wasn't into sodas that way in that kind of way you know the only options were tomato juice or you know elderflower i don't know if that's big the hair yeah well you know tomato juice sometimes you're just not in the mood for one of those and so it's not quite a celebratory is it this feels like you know it does affect you and when you go out and you don't have what choice have you got you feel quite apart from everybody else absolutely you've piqued my interest with all this discussion about taste and i'm going to open up the pomegranate hibiscus variety here and pour myself some if you don't mind absolutely there we go enjoy let's take a swirl here well it smells delicious it doesn't smell like vinegary or sour in any kind of way the fruit flavors that you're getting the watermelon I'm sorry the pomegranate hibiscus are really coming through

42:54nicely. Yeah, very, so the number of times you describe the beverage as yeasty, it's very, it comes, but I think that might be off-putting or sound off-putting to some people, but it is that in a really nice way. Yeah, people like champagne, don't they? Yeah, that's exactly what a champagne is. Exactly. It's got that exact same mouthfeel as a glass of champagne, but with absolutely no alcohol in it. So that complexity that you get from the liquid after the fermentation process is what we think is undeniably and very difficult to match. Yes, flavor, complex flavor and not too sweet. So for anyone listening to this podcast, I would say yes, find yourself a can of Agua de Madre and drink it because it's good.

43:38But we don't have, I mean, we have a lot of listeners, but we don't have enough listeners to support a beverage company. So when you're talking about communication and marketing you know i'm looking at your cans you have a couple different iterations of your label here you know what's really resonating with folks i i asked the question earlier about taste versus functional benefit but you know what's really getting someone to reach into that cooler pull a can off shelf and then pay for it hopefully not stealing it what are they called shoplifting here i don't know i don't mind if they're shoplifting i think as soon as we added the fruit we got these beautiful drawings of fruit done by an illustrator I think as soon as we added fruit I think that makes it much easier for people to make a very fast emotional decision they see the color they see the label I don't know if you can want to talk about the label it's quite innovative it looks like stickers on top of each other yes I was actually kind of curious about that if at a glance it looks like it's three stickers on top of each other but it's actually all one label yeah so we use a process where we are printing different like types so on top it's gloss the midsection's matte and then at the bottom we're using a gloss coat as well which then gives it different layers and thicknesses which makes people want to sort of pick the stickers off but it's actually all in one wrap and there's a feel there's a hand feel as well there's a hand feel yeah and it's slightly rough finish in the midsection yeah something that i don't think many people have gone to that level of detail on on a label and the fact that there's quite a lot of can showing as well it's quite unusual and makes it really stand out on shelf with the metallic finish.

45:11You'll notice on the old can, because we brought two, so you can sort of see how we've developed. It wasn't really covering the full can before, and we were sort of hiding from the fact that it was a water kefir with some areas covered up. But on the new label, you can see that we've now got water kefir front and center, big, bold, and we see that as one of our number one selling points. You know, people understand what kefir is now, and we don't want to hide from that. We want that to be front of center. And people go, water kefir? How is that a thing? You know, everyone knows what dairy kefir is, but they're like, you know, here's a dairy-free alternative to get behind.

45:46Yeah, because it could look like a San Pellegrino if you weren't careful. So having kefir on there gives it, probably justifies the price, doesn't it? Yeah. Which is not massive, but premium. Three pounds per can. Yeah, the label has a very modern art kind of feel to it. It feels like very contemporary in that if you go to MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art, you'd see something similar to what I'm looking at right now. I thought it felt quite sort of retro, actually. Well, I think it's nostalgic. It's nostalgic. It's kind of, with the idea originally. The fonts and the colors and everything and the illustrations is all led by the designer.

46:21To be kind of a modern twist on a nostalgic sort of brand with like the stickers layered is quite, you know, old school in a way. Totally, yeah. And what's old is often new again. Yes, exactly. That's it. Yeah, there's another brand called Ghia, G-H-I-A. which is a maker of non-alcoholic aperitifs that uses stickers, and they have a silver can like yours, and it's a little bit similar, but yours is very different in that, again, it's one label, but the stickers all look like they're stacked together. That's practical purpose, we realize. Yes, for sure. We turned up with a label. Yes, yes, that would be very difficult, and it would annoy your team, I'm sure, to no end.

46:59We briefly talked before we hopped on the mics about a potential evolution in your positioning to include or be more inclusive of the word soda. Is that something that you're still... Soda. Towards soda, yeah. Well, our tagline is, like soda, but good for you. So we are definitely, by saying like soda, associating ourselves, aren't we really? Yeah, there's a few occasions where I've been out and about in trade, and I'll be talking to someone about what we do, and then for some reason I'd link it to kombucha and say, oh, it's similar to kombucha, and then they go, what's kombucha? And then I was just thinking, wow, we're sort of in this sort of area where we believe that everyone knows what we're doing.

47:39But actually, if you funnel out of your own little world, so many people still don't know what, yeah, we're in a bubble. So it's sort of getting out of that bubble and trying to make our product accessible and easy to understand for the mass market as we scale rather than just pigeonholing ourselves as this gut health trendy product. We want to be seen as a mass scale product that people understand at a glance. Yeah, we did have a little time with light kombucha, but delicious just so cheeky but we've changed that now to like soda but like soda but good for you i'm sure the kombucha colleagues that you had were not happy with that yeah they loved it you know if you came to the states and i imagine that at some point you know you'd consider distribution in the united states every consultant would come out of the woods and tell you that you need to use the word soda instead of water kefir and it's because that is the most easily understood and accessible term to mainstream consumers but then maybe you're not going after mainstream consumers maybe the focus is just really folks that are educated and looking for premium products you know within this category would you say olipop was premium was mainstream because we'd like a bit of their market thank you i'd say when they first launched it didn't feel like a main mainstream concept, but it quickly proved itself to be just that.

49:02In your heart of hearts, in your dreams, where do you see the brand in the next five years? We are growing fast. So we are setting our sights on tripling our business this year. And we're aiming to double again next year. And then again, the year after is the plan in terms of growth trajectory. Yeah, it's in the name really, Agua de Mago. So we were actually, you know, the Spanish name, we want to be all over Europe and all over America. and anywhere beyond, really. And we've already had interest. What's really interesting is 20 % of our online traffic on our website is coming from the U.S. without us doing any advertising there or media whatsoever, which just shows that there's a real demand for our products.

49:42And you're shipping overseas? Not yet. Not yet? Okay. But we would love to be as soon as possible. But 20 % of the traffic is coming from the U.S.? Yeah. Interesting. So why haven't you started shipping to the U.S.? Cash flow. So, yeah, once we can afford to make such a move, we would be very much up for it. So are you looking for investment money at this point? We are, always. So if an investor came to you and said, okay, I love this brand, I love what you guys stand for, but Water Kiefer is not going to sell in the United States, and they asked you to change the name, would you? Absolutely. What do you mean, change the name?

50:12Change the description of what you're selling. Yeah, absolutely. I'm always like that. We've noticed everyone has made their own because they probably couldn't find anyone that's making it. and they've called it kefir soda, interestingly, because that's probably what's going to relate to the U.S. consumer more. So we'd be more than happy to probably go down that road as well if that's what would be required for the American market. Well, investors love flexible founders, so well done. Yeah, it'd be pretty cool if we could set up a brewery in Mexico where the water kefir was first found and use that as our home to ship into the U.S.

50:45It would be a pipe dream that we would love to fill one day. Well, we were just talking about BevNet's office in San Diego. I was just going to say it's pretty close. I'd be happy with San Diego. My lovely auntie and uncle live in San Diego, so I'd love to come there anytime. All right. Well, when you do decide to make the trip, you've got to come see the office. And as I always say, you know. Next week, okay? Yeah, sure. I just got to fly out there, which is no problem. I'm happy to do that. This has been a really wonderful conversation and sort of an impromptu one. We were planning to meet for a bit of a shorter time, And I said, no, you know, like Agua de Magres.

51:19This is much more than a short conversation. I'm really glad that we had this opportunity in this ballroom of the Nomad Hotel, which is wonderful. Thank you both so much for taking the time. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Let's definitely stay in touch. Wonderful. Thanks for having us. Thank you. Really appreciate it.

51:40That 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 Smirlinski. 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 Podcasts 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