232: Sanzo

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1:00I personally was in Whole Foods stores at 4 or 5 a.m. helping the staff pack out product. And so what you can do is you kind of trade that for some favors. Hey, we're doing this work. How about considering giving us either additional or preferential placement in your store? You're listening to The Taste Podcast. I'm your host, Matt Rodbard.

1:28sandro racco is the founder of sanso which has been my go-to sparkling water of choice for two three years i love it so much i wanted to invite sandro into the studio not only because i am a big fan of his cans of lychee and calamansi spike bubbles but honestly i wanted to know how he runs his business how he got it off the ground how he bootstrapped this company in one of the most crowded categories in all of grocery beverage we also talk about how he was able to get jeremy Lin, the former New York Knick, to appear on the Sanzo Can. It was so cool getting to know Sandro a bit better, and I hope you enjoy this episode.

2:10Sandro Rocco, welcome to Taste Podcast. Oh, thanks so much for having me. So amazing to be here today. Like, I have bought your product, Sanzo, about 75 times, and I think I went today to go buy some calamansi just to prep for this interview and get in the mode. But they were out of it. They were basically sold out of it. Oof. We got to go back down there as soon as we're done recording this. I mean, I have a lot of questions about your brand. You wouldn't be here if I didn't think it was dope. I really like what you're doing with using natural products. You're making bottled or sparkling canned water interesting.

2:46You're using Southeast Asian, East Asian products. That's all very cool. What is Sanzo in your words? Yeah, I mean, Sanzo is the first Asian-inspired sparkling water made with real fruit plus no added sugar. And, like, we almost, like, put a period just at that point because after that, then it gets into a whole world of storytelling, bridging cultures, exciting things like that. But as far as the product goes, honestly, the whole goal of it was to make that as simple as possible so that it required as little explanation so we could get into the world of storytelling, brand building, or for folks who just like and just who just enjoy simple products, just get right to it.

3:25Yeah, right to it. And like the storytelling element of what your brand, you know, you did a collaboration with Jeremy Lin. There's like a great story and we'll get to that story. But when it comes down to it, this product, Senzo, was inspired by you going to the grocery store and being disappointed. I'd love to hear you talk about this day when you ended up in a Koreatown grocery store. I think I know which one it is, but I'm not going to put words in your mouth. I'm happy to put it there. Yeah, it was literally for folks who are in New York City or who have traveled here. There's almost like, I guess, an iconic H Mart on 32nd Street between 5th and 6th in the heart of Koreatown.

4:04and I walked in there and the big thing that I noticed was, I guess, two main observations, one of which was, hey, on one shelf, there are all these amazing, nostalgic, you know, I'll say Asian import brands that I drank a lot of in my childhood. What are those brands? Like, let's get into a few of those. So there's a blue can that's a, the brand name is called Gina and they sell a mango nectar. Yeah. That is delicious. I know that one. It's good. There'd be like a Yo's Chrysanthemum tea. Oh, yeah. Also super delicious. Calpico. Yeah. What about Pocari? Oh, Pocari Sweat, of course. Oh, yeah. And still in Japan, you go there and it is the hydration beverage.

4:48I.e. hangover beverage. I know, right? Exactly. Pocari Sweat is dope. But there was something missing, though, your observations. Right. And so I think the biggest thing for me was while those beverages were delicious, ultimately the vast majority of them, unfortunately, if you turn over the ingredient panel, it's a lot of ingredients you can't pronounce. The nutrition side, whether it's calorie count, sugar, it's just not as friendly if you're looking for, and I think for my own perspective, I'm 35 now and it just – what I tell folks is I had learned too much. I had learned a little bit too much about nutrition.

5:31I'm still not – I'm not the fittest person in the world but I learned at least enough to know that, hey, consuming calories in that way was just not something that I wanted to do. Yeah, especially in like the drinks form. Like if you're going to consume calories, maybe you wanted to do it in a different way. Absolutely. And not have a sugar-loaded, artificial-coloring-loaded drink even though effing delicious. Right. Right. So good. But I think within that realm, though, the other big revelation that I had was, hey, here are a lot of these fruits that, let's say, when I traveled to Asia and visited my visited family there, it would taste different from the beverages that I was consuming in these stores.

6:08And a lot of it was because I felt like a lot of what I came to learn was, you know, you mentioned Calamansi. You know, one of the most popular ways to serve Calamansi in the Philippines is through what they call it Calamansi juice, but it's basically like a lime or a lemonade. And the problem, and it's delicious, but the problem with it is, at least for me, or why I can't consume it on a daily basis is it actually has more grams of sugar than a Coca-Cola. Yeah. And I just felt like, hey, why are we continuing to mask the natural beauty of calamansi, of lychee, of Alfonso Mango by adding all of this sugar?

6:41So when I started playing around, I mean, this is probably fast forwarding a bit, but when I started playing around with the drinks and getting pure, unadulterated fruit juices and purees, my mind was blown because I just felt like, wow, there's a vibrancy of avacity in these natural juices and purees that I wasn't getting in the finished products. And so that was definitely one half of the journey. Um, and what I didn't mention was the other, you know, when I was at, when I was in K-Town and at the Sage Mart, you know, the other beverage shelf that I would see were all these amazing quote unquote, like American, you know, new lifestyle brands that were sitting on shelves, um, that did have, I felt like, you know, these modern, um, uh, both front labels and ingredient labels, um, that I just felt like, Hey, the, like, you know, Asian flavors, Asian cultures, Asian voices, like we deserve a brand that adequately represents us in today's American culture.

7:41And so it was really the combination of those two, I guess, insights, if you want to call it our observations. Yeah, really sound observations. You would, you know, it would crystallize in your product. Let's go back to when you were actually doing R &D. I remember I interviewed one of the founders of Halo Top and I remember they were making their first batches in a in a Vitamix or in a KitchenAid. What were your first batches of Sanso all about? Like, were you using like a SodaStream? Pretty similarly. Mine, I went more of the, so I never was actually a beer brewer at home, but looked up, you know, basically a beer brewing kit.

8:16So I essentially had my own CO2 tank, five gallon corny keg. So I started out going down that route as well as the route of sure like a benchtop basically buying Canada Dry seltzer purees off Amazon. Great brand. I love Canada Dry. It has a great high bubble like high bubbles. It hurts. It's like shardy in your mouth. I love the bubble count. It's high. It's very high. Yeah. And then a kitchen scale and just you know measuring cups that you just get off the street. So you were like thinking about ratios because I think what's important to note if you've never tried Sanzo. It's, it has a lot of fruit in it.

8:56It's fruit forward. To use my own observation, it's more spin drift than La Croix. It has more fruit in it. It's fruit forward, but it still is obviously very much a water, not a soda. That's correct. And that was intentional. It's meant to give you refreshing hydration, not necessarily be, you know, like a meal. Yeah. Yeah. That can be too much when it, you know, and lead in. But what was the first breakthrough when you were starting your brand? I have a lot of founders on the show and we talk about moments in the narrative or in the timeline where it's like these like rubber hits the road moments.

9:32You're now currently in every single Whole Foods in the America and in several hundred targets. And I'm sure your trajectory is continually growing. We'll get to that. But was there a rubber hits the road moment where you actually were like, this is a real thing? Sure. I mean, I think there were two very early on that fortunately came early and right beside each other that gave me a sense of that feeling. So, you know, the first one was, you know, within about a couple of months. So, you know, I talked about the H Mart story, but, you know, another formative story for me was I remember sitting down at Momofuku Sambar in the East Village.

10:10Oh, RIP. I know. It's sad. It's sad. I am appreciative of its reincarnation at South Street Seaport, but the East Village location is something special. Yeah. It was something special over there. But I was sitting at the bar, and, you know, for folks who know this space, you know that in that world you're putting a lot of attention into what goes on the menu, but also, and especially at the time, Momofuku had a fantastic SOM program, Sommelier program. And so you also knew that what was going on, the beverage menu had as much intentionality as what was going on on the food menu. But when you got down to the non-alcoholic section, the only options there were Coke, Diet Coke, I think Dr.

10:52Pepper, and I want to say San Pellegrino. I'm not sure if it was San Pellegrino or Perrier, but it was one of those two brands. I'm going to get to San Pellegrino. Just thinking about the world's 50 best and just thinking about David Chang. Right. Probably San Pellegrino, right? Yeah. And so, you know, one of my thoughts there was, well, hey, if I can create a brand that fits this space that, you know, David has created just such a brand around, then that could be an interesting wedge in. And fortunately, within about two months of launching, and this is a story for another day, but was able to actually get our Sanzo into the Momofuku board meeting that he was having with his investors, had one sip specifically of our Kalamansi.

11:32That's amazing. Did you go through Jordan, the beverage manager there? Yeah. Wow. That's deep tracks. Yes. Yeah. I know that history of Momo. I've been a long-term fan and have had a lot of those people on the show. But yeah. Exactly. We went through Jordan and they got to Dave. And we were selling – so the first thing was we were selling at Momofuku Bong Bar in Columbus Circle. And it was turning – it was selling as well, if not better, than the other beverages they had been selling there. And that was definitely a big one for me, just knowing how much I looked up to Dave and his contributions.

12:07You know, being able to get that out of the gate was like, it's big. I mean, I think for folks who are not as familiar with our world, there are a lot of beverage, new beverage brands and new beverage products that are launched every year. Every minute. Right. And very few get really out of the gate. I mean, we talked to Ellie Chusdell about this and, you know, she's a VC who works in food. and it's the most saturated category in all of food it is beverage because it's relatively cheap to make it's you push units when you hit you hit big when you hit it's obviously a lot of reasons i'm very much paraphrasing but um to actually break through is impossible like probably statistically impossible and i think fortunately i had enough ignorance or naivete to not know all that in the beginning days um so yeah i mean the the getting into momo early was was big but then And the other one for me was we also got taken in by this vegan fast casual chain, which is now called Beatnik, but at the time was called By Chloe.

13:06And I really did have this thesis. And I really set the tone for Sanzo being a brand that bridged cultures, that while we would be hopefully embraced by the Asian-American audience, I felt represented even more than just representing Asian-Americans, but was actually representative of broader American tastes. And for what basically once we started selling into By Chloe, which does not have your, you know, necessarily you wouldn't first think, oh, Asian influence. And we were out selling all of the other beverages that were sitting on their shelves. I won't name the brands because I'm actually friends with two of the other brands that were there.

13:47It's all friendly. It's all friendly. Kind of. I mean, to that point, I mean, we have seltzer fatigue. We have sparkling water fatigue. We have bubble fatigue. I mean, LaCroix, obviously out of the gate, hot. And then Spindrift came. And like everyone has their favorite and every big box has their brand. How are you able to actually maintain momentum, get that big buy-in from Whole Foods, and then continue to grow in this market that's becoming more difficult to penetrate? I mean, there's multiple factors. I mean, first of which is the brand has to be able to sell on its own. And fortunately, within a couple of weeks, one thing that's great about Whole Foods is you actually get weekly reporting directly from Whole Foods about how well your product is selling.

14:30And so with us not even doing anything, the product, especially our lychee flavor, which is our number one seller. Is that right? I was going to ask. Yeah, and that is now, again, and I'll get to the second part later, but it is already in the top 10 percentile. of all single-serve beverages in Whole Foods nationally. So, you know, there's an element of, well, the brand, and I guess by brand in this case I mean the packaging, the taste, all of that have to be able to kind of organically hit with folks. And so, you know, that first part I credit our, yes, the Asian-American community, folks who were discovering us, the Whole Foods shopper who was just very open to trying our product.

15:18You know, I'm just very grateful for that. But the other part, too, and I think a lot of folks, even myself, I don't think I had a great appreciation for it. But, you know, our our team, including myself, going out to stores and actively merchandising the product. You know, I was in I personally was in Whole Foods stores at four or five a.m. helping the staff, you know, pack out product. And so what you can do is you kind of trade that for some favors. Hey, we're doing this work. How about considering giving us either additional or preferential placement in your store? This is boots on the ground work.

15:58Is that something that you just had to will yourself into those stores at 4 a.m.? Who's the gatekeeper to get you in? Because I think people listening to this, there's going to be young founders listening. And they're like, is it just hustle? or do you have to actually have some connections get in to actually do that work? You hustle to get the connections. And mostly it's just showing up at the grocery store because a lot of times these folks will happily take the help. I mean, you're effectively, I wouldn't say doing their job because they're quite overstretched, but you are helping them to do their job.

16:34And so it's basically partnering up with the retailer, in this case Whole Foods, and then your distributor and coordinating that. But that is, I think, especially for folks, I have this conversation a lot of times with folks, especially who come from certain degrees, whether bachelor's or master's or maybe come from certain backgrounds. And this is a very blue-collar business at the end of the day. And there can be a lot of pretty numbers on an Excel or on a spreadsheet. But ultimately, how and where you make it happen is in the three-dimensional world. And so what I often, you know, when I'm coaching or mentoring founders who are going through this for the first time, I actually try to simplify it and demystify and say, get off the screen, go out into a store.

17:21And that's how you learn the business by talking to the folks on the ground. That's cool to hear. I mean, it makes sense perfectly with food. There's obviously products that sell themselves online. There's definitely direct-to-consumer models where you don't have to leave your desk and it's all done by Instagram or whatever, big spends, et cetera. But when you're talking about food, we're also talking about water, which is like physical, heavy. I mean, this is like heavy stuff. This isn't a package of dry pasta or a jar of something small, like a condiment. I mean, this is like water. You got to be in the store, you know, getting your money, you know, rolling up your sleeves, right?

17:53And I have a question. So how do you get your product into the bodega that's in my office lobby at the end cap with a cooler? How do you get, how does that happen? Because it's there and I was talking, I mean, I've been chatting up, as I said, I mentioned I bought 75 of them because it's in my office. I love it and it helps me write. It makes my fingers work. Now, how did you get that there, that big, that cool cooler at the end of an aisle? Well, that is where I will say it is very good to have a great team that knows how to do specifically that. Right. And so what they will tip, so that, I mean, I wish that was me that could claim that, but I'll give the kudos to, you know, one of the folks who works here in New York City who would specifically be covering, you know, this territory.

18:37And essentially it's just, I mean, a lot of that is relationship development and also continuing to show them data. So, you know, if we're seeing in a, you know, we're right now in Midtown right by Central Park. You know, one of the largest Whole Foods in the country is two blocks away in Columbus Circle. And so what we can do is we can show, hey, we're selling super well at the Whole Foods in Columbus Circle down the street. We can bring that to the store and then maybe that can serve as the basis for a conversation. But that's also, but that's only part of it, right? That's the data part. A lot of it also comes down to having a fantastic sales team member who is enterprising enough to go into that store and basically put that case study together and develop the relationship with that store manager.

19:21And, you know, I've met the folks who own the store. They're really nice and they're Korean-Americans. And I know your storytelling is part of your Asian-American, you know, brand and the flavors are Asian-American or Asian, but you as a founder are. Now, does that help you in certain markets where you're actually saying this is an Asian-American founded company? Oh, it absolutely can. I mean, it depends obviously on the store. And this is where, this is frankly where the fun of field sales comes in. Yeah, sure. You're going into stores and you're trying to read, you know, one store manager in one store can have a completely different profile.

19:56You might also get them on either a very good day or a very bad day. And it's up to the sales team member to be able to read that. You know, one of the fun things about our team in New York is, and he's been in the industry now for about close to 20 years. He is Korean American and he speaks English, Spanish, and Korean, which in the world of New York City bodegas and just running grocery stores, that's like the trifecta. And so just being able to empathize with folks regardless of the language they speak or where they come from. But obviously if you can speak the language, gosh, you're helped out pretty well.

20:38Same with beer sales too. I know that that's a big part of the big distributors here use Korean, Spanish, and English. I want to hear a little bit about how the product is made. Now, your flavors include pomelo, yuzu with ginger, calamansi, lychee, mango, and Asian pear, then Sanity, a special edition. We'll talk about that. These are products that are not grown or made in one part of the world. How do you pull from all around the globe with different seasons, and where is it actually being manufactured? Sure. I mean, one of the great things, I actually literally was just speaking to someone right before coming in here, he was asking about the abundance of the fruit supply.

21:17And what I had to remind him was, you know, these fruits are known and beloved by an entire hemisphere representing 60 % of the world's population. So I think when folks sometimes hear like, hey, and it may be true, you know, folks here may have not have heard about some of these flavors, particularly, I'll say maybe like a Calamansi. But for a broad spectrum, show them over the world, you know, it is actually pretty well known. And if that's the case, then there's actually a decent supply chain around that. And so, yeah, I'll say each fruit has a, like really does have its own specific story.

21:53I mean, the Calamansi is an example, is grown predominantly in Southeast Asia. So we work with suppliers in Vietnam and in the Philippines. Lychee is a great example. You kind of pointed out there that is grown both in Asia and also different parts of Africa. And so, you know, we're able to source that, you know, different times throughout the year as well. So really, I mean, it's hard to say one specific story because each of the fruits really has its own specific spot. Yeah, so have you visited Origin for a lot of these products? As a founder, I would imagine you want to know where it's coming from, but also that's almost an unrealistic question for especially a small-ish growing company.

22:34How much of it have you seen in person? So I'm actually taking my first trip to Asia post-COVID in July, where I'll be doing exactly that. Unfortunately, you know, started the brand in the summer of 2019. And so basically from, you know, beginning of 2020 onward, just really haven't been able to get out there. So very, very excited in the next couple of months to actually be able to go and visit some of our suppliers. Where are you going? What's on your list? So I'll specifically be in Japan and in the Philippines. Oh, right on. So be able to visit some of our suppliers. there. I love that. Um, let's transition to talking about just founding and running a small, small and growing food business.

23:15Like what was yesterday like, like, were you stressed out at any point of yesterday? Yeah. I mean, I was in phone calls or meetings with the exception of lunch, which I had to, which I have to, I now I've learned, I actually now have to book out on my calendar. Otherwise it gets booked up, but literally between the hours of 8am and 6pm, pretty much straight with the exception of lunch. And look, it can be a roller coaster. Yesterday, actually my takeaway from being completely candid was, oh my gosh, like that was actually a pretty great day. You know, like heard from all of our teams, sales, marketing, operations, and finance.

23:51And yeah, we're putting out some, you know, some fires in certain areas. But overall, it's like, oof, I feel like we have a really great game plan and things are going very much in the right direction. You know, a couple of weeks ago, uh you know there's i was traveling all over um you know the west coast and um falling quite a bit behind i mean for good work for for good work uh things but when i'm away from new york and away from our hq um you know there can be a lot of the general blocking and tackling that goes by the wayside and admittedly like the overhang of that to-do list can and has at times been like incredibly overwhelming and, um, you know, over consuming from a mental health perspective and it's not, not great.

24:35So, um, but if your question is specifically about yesterday, yesterday was a bright sunny day and I felt like our team was in a really great spot. I love it. Those are the good days. What did you have for lunch then? So, um, I live in the Cobble Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn. I lived there for 17 years. It's my spot. And I'll say kind of sad. In some ways, I guess it's good to have this celebration, but I'll admit it's kind of a sad story, the changing of the fabric of the neighborhood. A sandwich shop that had been open for over 100 years called G. Esposito and Sons. And they make what for me is my favorite Italian sub, or I guess hero if you're from New York, Long Island area.

25:18But yesterday was their last day. that's so i i lived at first in court for 17 years i was right there yeah that was my spot and it had the big pig in front big in front oh when we're done with here i'm going to show you videos of yeah the fire department literally uh taking the pig away oh my gosh please and then and tell me what was that sandwich what was what was on it what are we talking about so it's your classic italian sub i mean you know prosciutto salami mortadella provolone um and just like a little bit of extra virgin olive oil, the biggest thing that that sandwich shop showed me was about proportionality.

25:56I find that it actually demonstrated to me that, oh, wow, in today's world, we're putting way too much on a sandwich. And it can create a feeling of, and even for some people who maybe don't like Italian subs, maybe they think it's too heavy, too salty, too what have you um well one i don't hold that i love it i love a great italian sub um but then particularly this one it just shows the importance of great proportions in a sandwich it showed restraint um and also focus on high quality ingredients sandra that's well said i think that we overstuff our sandwiches just for like meme culture yeah instagram etc they need to look extra big but like ratio between bread and condiments and toppings and and meat and cheese is important.

26:42And oftentimes what those folks are doing, and again, I'm not here to bash on anyone, but to get that level of quantity, you are making some decisions or taking some shortcuts on quality. And if you have really high quality ingredients and you'll put together in a great way, well, one, you just don't need as much of it. It actually nourishes you exactly to the degree that you need to, and it tastes better. I just have to say, just observation, I'm standing pretty hard right here, but like when you have a heavily salted meal, be it like, you know, jajamien or a sub or bolognese or something like a lot of umami and calamansi sanso, like rips, man.