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Podcast Summary: This Is TASTE Episode 303 - Olipop
Overview In this episode of *This Is TASTE*, hosts Aliza Abarbanel and Matt Rodbard interview Ben Goodwin, co-founder of Olipop, a better-for-you soda brand that has disrupted traditional soda giants like Coca-Cola and Pepsi. The conversation dives into the development of Olipop's flavors, the challenges of founding a beverage company, and the health benefits associated with Olipop's high-fiber formulation. In addition, Aliza shares her experience of visiting Costco for the first time.
Key Concepts and Discussions
Olipop's Mission and Philosophy
- Better-for-You Soda: Olipop aims to provide a healthier alternative to traditional sodas, offering a high-fiber beverage that appeals to health-conscious millennials.
- Flavor Development: Ben discusses the intricate process of developing Olipop's flavors, such as Vintage Cola and Crisp Apple, emphasizing the importance of nostalgia and balancing sweetness with other flavor notes.
- Health Benefits: Each can of Olipop contains nine grams of fiber, addressing the average American's fiber deficit and potentially impacting digestive health positively.
Flavor Creation Process
- In-house Formulation: Ben emphasizes that he formulates all Olipop flavors in-house, drawing on over 17 years of experience in flavor and product development.
- Iterative Testing: The development process involves creating multiple versions of a flavor, testing them, and refining based on taste and consumer feedback.
- Nostalgia Factor: Each flavor connects to nostalgic experiences for consumers, ensuring that they have a familiar yet innovative taste.
Challenges in the Beverage Industry
- Market Saturation: The beverage market is crowded, and Ben addresses the difficulties new entrants face, including distribution hurdles and consumer education.
- Competition: Ben acknowledges the presence of copycat brands but believes that diverse entrants can validate a category, making it easier for Olipop to stand out.
Health and Nutrition
- Fiber's Role: Discussion on the role of fiber in the diet and its importance in managing blood sugar levels. Ben highlights research indicating that the average American falls short of the recommended fiber intake.
- Nutritional Diversity: Olipop promotes the idea of incorporating nutritional diversity into diets, linking its mission to broader health outcomes.
Insights on Costco Visit
- Costco Experience: Aliza shares her first impressions of Costco, discussing the unique shopping environment, bulk purchasing, and the appeal of their prepared foods.
- Community Connection: The hosts reflect on how Costco serves as a communal shopping space, particularly in urban areas, where residents might share products among friends or neighbors.
- Cultural Relevance: They explore the cultural significance of Costco as a retailer that offers value through bulk goods and unique items that resonate with consumers.
Key Takeaways
- Innovative Beverage: Olipop represents a significant shift in the beverage landscape by merging health benefits with nostalgic flavors.
- Flavor Development: The creation of flavors is a nuanced process that combines scientific knowledge with an understanding of consumer preferences and desires.
- Health Awareness: Raising awareness about dietary fiber and its benefits is crucial in today’s health-conscious market.
- Retail Dynamics: The evolving relationship between big-box retailers like Costco and local communities reflects changing consumer behaviors and expectations.
Conclusion The episode presents an engaging and insightful discussion on the intersection of food, health, and culture through the lens of Olipop and the experiences of its founders. Both Ben Goodwin's journey and Aliza's Costco visit offer valuable perspectives on navigating the modern food landscape.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:28This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. Ten years ago, there were times when I would literally spend six months doing three, four hundred versions of a foreigner to get to something that I actually thought was acceptable. All that hard work did end up paying off, though, because now I have a large amount of conceptual understandings of the way the flavors work against each other.
0:52This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbart.
0:59for over a decade ben goodwin the co-founder of olipop has been building a better for you soda that has aimed to change the soda game disrupting the big boys at coke and pepsi and offering a high fiber unusually craveable beverage for discerning millennials well dang 2023 was certainly the year of oldie pop and goodwin joins in the studio to talk about all of it He details how he developed flavors like vintage cola, crisp apple, and fruit punch, and digs into the challenges facing beverage founders today. It's really fun having Ben on the show, and I hope you enjoy this conversation.
1:45Ben Goodwin, welcome to This Is Taste. What's up? Hey, Matt. Thanks for having me. It's cool to meet you. We're talking about pronunciations to start. You might as well It's Ollipop Although I have to be honest My own mom calls it Ollipop Okay your own mom Yeah and I have to have the conversation Mom one day they're going to interview you Just do me the solid And learn Ollipop for me Yes it's like a certain trick on a certain board We won't get into that We won't get into that But she also calls it like turmeric You know like it's just I like the turmeric crowd They're always fun. Yeah, or kombucha.
2:23You know, there's that. Yeah. It happens. What about the white liquid that comes from cows? Milk. I'm from the Midwest, so it's milk. Milk. Milk. Yeah, my mom's from Ohio. So she's a milk hive? Yeah, she probably would say. I mean, she hasn't said it recently that I'm a... We actually were talking about milk the other day, but I didn't track it. You didn't track it. I mean, I grew up with things like Heavens to Betsy and stuff like that. So let's talk about Olipop. And I have thoughts on the flavor profile, the effervescence, the acidity, and the general sweetness to bitter ratio. Yeah. To me, it's all really, really exciting.
2:59I like how this tastes. But tell me, in your words, how do you describe the flavor of your product? What a great, deep question. Yeah. So I'll certainly – it's a large question. So I obviously do 100 % of our formulation in-house. and I've been a flavor developer and a product developer for like 17, 18 years at this point. So I don't know. I always kind of started off just trying to formulate my own things. In prior ventures, you'd inevitably get to a point of scale where somebody would say, hey, either for cost reasons or efficiency reasons or because your time is getting more and more limited, why don't we go to a flavor house?
3:39And then I'd go to a flavor house and I'd say, here's what I'm trying to get to. And then like six frustrating months later, I'd be like, why the hell am I trying to do this? What's an example? Just give one right now. I mean, so we had a prior venture. Every flavor I've ever worked on. Like we would go and, you know, I haven't put every flavor I've ever worked on in prior ventures through a flavor house. But we had a lemon lime, a grapefruit orange, we actually had a cherry, and we had a root beer in the prior venture. And so at a certain point, we're like, hey, maybe there's some optimization that a flavor house can do.
4:11Because people just, you know, you're in your 20s and people are like, this kid can't possibly. Yeah, they're like, we're in New Jersey, somewhere suburb where all the flavor houses are, and we're better than you. Well, or even people in your own company just assume at some point that we're going to get some sort of optimization going through this. Yeah, right. And I'm sure there's talented flavor chemists out there. I work with some folks that I've had a decade-plus relationship with. But in general, I always have just formulated my own products. And at this point, and I'll get around to actually answering your question, I swear.
4:43Good context. But at this point, you know, my approach to formulations is actually quite different than even it was like 10 years ago. Right. 10 years ago, if I wanted to work through something, there were times when I would literally spend six months doing three, four hundred versions of a formula to get to something that I actually thought was acceptable. All that hard work did end up paying off, though, because now I have a large amount of conceptual understandings of the way the flavors work against each other. And I can almost I think about it in advance. So like the watermelon lime, for example, I thought about that formula just here and there off and on for like two years.
5:22So by the time it came time to actually start working on it, there's a lot of the conceptual architecture for where I wanted to go with it was in my mind. And then I'll think more specifically around what are the acids we're using? What are the flavor notes we're trying to get to? How do we balance them against each other? It's so cool about watermelon. You think about watermelon. They could be watermelon, Jolly Rancher. There could be Agua Fresca watermelon. There could be like really dull watermelon that you get at like the farm stand in July. Yeah, how thick do you want it? How thin do you want it?
5:51How bright do you want it? How sharp do you want it? How sweet do you want it? Do you want a little salt note in there? What's the balance? Yeah. And so now I get to the point where typically I've thought about both the concept and the architecture of the flavor enough that by the time I go to my yellow notepad and I write down my first formula, I'm usually like 70 % to 80 % of the way there. Nice. in the it just continue to you're like Jay-Z like Jay-Z had it all in his head and then he's going to do the blueprint oh yeah that's how he did it yeah he just like does it like in a couple takes it's like the blueprint happens because he's been formulating right right right I think it's a lot of the creative process can happen up there because you're you have no constraints once you're up when you're in your mind and also the other thing that will end up happening is I'll develop like a little bit of a feeling that's attached to where I want to be and so then as I go through the tasting process I'm like is this giving me that feeling right is it so i've already created this like anchorage or anchor point around the around the formula in the case of watermelon but then there's almost always some sort of curveball that gets thrown in once you actually start because you're 70 of the way there you put your initial formula together and then you just go through this iterative process i do four versions i pick i learn from all four of them but i pick the one that's the best and then i say okay here's the different things now i want to test on this version four new versions or whatever it is.
7:10So what's the thread that links your flavors together? Because I feel in having sampled about 12 SKUs, I personally think there's a thread there. There is. I mean, I'm always looking to try to hit a nostalgic aspect for, it has to sit with me, it has to be nostalgic for me, and I have to feel confident it's going to be nostalgic for our customers. And so I think about what's that nostalgic kind of framework? What is the expectation associated with what this flavor typically is? And then critically, how do I make it ownable and move the flavor forward so that Olipop has a specific way of expressing that flavor, but while still having a linkage structure that goes back to what's expected?
8:00Right. Like, you know, the cherry vanilla or the cherry cola, which you're having now. I'm sipping on right now. Perfect example of that. Like it's, you know, there's some tart cherry in there. There's some black cherry flavor notes. There's our traditional cola. But then I added some interesting fruit notes to the cola. What's one? It's kind of a secret. I bet. But there's probably like a mood. It's a dark fruit. Oh, okay. So plum. Might be in that general direction. Cherry plum. Might be in that general direction. I'm not confirming you're tonight. Or an olive. No, not an olive. That is a good dark fruit.
8:34But then, you know, now it's this. Now it still says cherry cola clearly, but it says it in this fairly differentiated way. Yeah. I'm going to just jump in and tell you what I think it's about. Yeah, for sure. Because I agree with you. There's definitely always nostalgia in a sip of Olipop. What I like is it's clean. It's really, it's like razor sharp. It's not distracted by the sugar notes of it. Like there's like not an artificial sweetener flavor that kind of distracts. It's like laser sharp towards that flavor. similar to what La Croix did back when Pomplamousse hit the scene a decade ago.
9:10But also, there's a craveability that makes me think there's salt. There's savory notes. There's a mommy. So there is a tiny bit of pink rock salt in the formula. Yeah. But it's a very minute quantity. Part of that is a very subtle undertone to the flavor, so kudos to you for grabbing that. Another piece of it, though, is that things that are acidic have to be converted to neutral in the liver. And they need alkaline compounds to do that. And so that's one of the things that actually typically associates soda consumption in the long term with higher rates of osteoporosis because all that carbonic acid.
9:50Wait, so like if you're like doing 12 Diet Cokes a day, you're like probably going to break your femur at some point? there are links to high levels of soda consumption and osteoporosis especially in older adults but it's because that acid goes into the liver remember how there's a whole crazy people were like your blood's acidic or it's alkaline, that's all bullshit the reason why it's bullshit is because if your blood pH shifted even like.1 or.2 you'd be in the hospital, right? So that's not happening because those are like diet books that were talking about the pH levels of your blood and your diet based on pH levels which is so erroneous But what does happen is the food comes in and it has to get converted in your liver.
10:29And so, for example, if you're constantly consuming highly acidic things, that's a bunch of magnesium. That's a bunch of phosphorus. That's a bunch of calcium. And where do you think great sources of those are? That's your bones. Yeah. So chronically breaking down huge amounts of really acidic stuff can, if you're not – especially if you're not replenishing. Yeah, if you're not getting a balanced diet. Let's jump into diet-related. Part of the product is diet-related in a way. Now, we've talked about flavor, and I've expressed my delight and my joy in drinking this product, but there is a level of diet and health here.
11:03Fiber. Yeah. Really, really, really, really fiber-rich. In fact, Andrea Hernandez, who we've had on the show many times, who runs a great snack cart, has called your product Millennial Menomucil, which I'd like to first say, what do you think about that? It's actually interesting that you bring that up because, you know, my mom had some emergent gastrointestinal conditions. And her gastroenterologist recommended she consume Metamucil. And so actually, look, psyllium husk is nothing wrong with psyllium husk. It's like it's a good and soluble fiber. But in Metamucil's case, it's like citric acid and artificial flavor and artificial color and cane sugar.
11:39It also like tastes like shit. Yeah, I was like, I'm not giving that to my mom. So I actually gave her unlimited supply of Olipop. And over time, it seems like it, you know, she went back in front of the colonoscopy and it seemed like it helped her. So what's this fiber doing? And looking at the can right now, I mean, on the cherry, you're doing nine grams per can. Yeah, there's nine grams for every flavor. I mean, so basically it's a baseline of nine grams. Everyone knows about 30, 35 percent of your, you know, what you need, that percentage. Right. Pretty good. According to the FDA. Right. So that's the thing.
12:09So the research that I looked at, and there's a bunch of really good research that's emerging in this area. The research that I was looking at that kind of facilitated the functional blend was really on indigenous diets, hunter-gatherer diets. You know what? Basically, humans are kind of built from a ground-up level to eat. And with the exception of groups like the Inuits, who are mostly over there eating fermented seal meat, most indigenous diets get 100 to 200 grams of fiber a day. and just even start to comprehend that. And a lot of that is actually prebiotic fiber as well. And so while if you take an average industrialized consumer and you said, hey, consume 100 grams of fiber, that would be a disaster.
12:49That's a lot of fiber ones. Right. And we all know if you go past two fiber ones for the day, yeah, you'll watch out. Yeah, it's a lot. But technically you could work your way up to that. There's actually some really exciting research that one of our scientific advisory board members, Dr. Jens Walter is doing right now, titrating up fiber consumption levels in industrialized consumers to see what the outcomes are going to be on microbiome health and metabolic health. So there's exciting research that's happening there. But my base point being the recommendation of 28 grams of fiber a day or for the WHO, it's 30 to 40, depending on if you're male and female.
13:26It's a low ball. That would be my analysis. So, right. But this is still very good. But even still, the average American is only getting 10 to 15 grams a day. So they're not even hitting their 28 grams. So why, when you were creating Olipop, why was fiber so important? Why did you want a product that – we started with flavor because it tastes good. Like you definitely drink it. You're like, I don't even know if there's fiber in here. But like fiber was part of the fiber of the company. Right, right. Yeah, that's right. So the three big things that looked like they were persistently present in these indigenous diets that are missing from industrialized diets or aren't present at the scale they need to be are fiber, prebiotics, and nutritional diversity, right?
14:09So that's also why this OliSmart blend that we have has seven different, eight different functional ingredients in it. And when we did our research at Purdue and some of the other universities we worked with, that's the blend that we actually tested for the microbiome outputs that it was generating. And in the future state, we're actually gonna be doing human clinical trials on blood sugar stabilization, which I'm very, very excited about. because fiber also has that impact. It actually does help to stabilize blood sugar. But those are the things that are missing. And so for my end, it's not like, I don't have a particular horse to ride in terms, like there's all sorts of stuff that I really like.
14:43Like I really like mushrooms and I like, you know. Yeah. But I really, my goal was to say like, hey, what's missing at scale? And would that be beneficial if it was present? And is there a way I can stick that into something that's mass like a soda? So there's also like the capitalist side of you, right? I mean, you're clearly like a flavor science professional and geek, which is great. We talk about flavor a lot on here. But also there's a capitalist side. There's the side that brought product market fit. And there's like the way that you really saw a need for a better for you soda that didn't taste like shit.
15:13I think I worked at health food stores in the 90s and they were all there and they tasted like crap. Like you needed to go back to like the Mountain Dews and Jostas and Dr. Pepper's. Those were better. Right. But clearly you were like, I'm good at what I do and I'm making this soda better. So let's talk about the capitalist side. You were pretty bullish on this working, right? Yeah. I mean, look, I think in order to be an entrepreneur, you've got to believe in your dreams. The reality is that – and I don't know exactly where the stat comes from, though. I've heard it multiple times from credible sources.
15:45But it's something like only 0.04 % of beverage companies make it to$10 million in revenue. Yeah. So 0.001 % of beverage companies make it to where we are now. So had I known that at the beginning of my illustrious air quotes career, I don't know if that would have dissuaded me or if I just would have marched into the void, irrespectively. But, yeah, I mean, I did feel very strong. I have always felt very strongly. But honestly, and this could sound a little bullshit, right? But the reality is it is the utility of what we're doing and the impact of what we're doing that actually gets me out of bed every day.
16:24I just don't have the makeup in me to do this because I'm just chasing the paycheck. I literally – I dropped out of college at 20 because we grew up poor and I didn't want to be in debt for the rest of my life. I dropped out of college at 20, helped a friend start a kombucha company, and now I'm 38. I've been doing this for 18 years. I cannot even describe to you the trials and tribulations to get to this point. and finances never would have been adequate. However, my enthusiasm and my belief around the importance of the critical nature of the mission actually does end up making me a better business leader because I understand that in order for this to actually be effective, the business itself has to work.
17:07Right. You can't start cutting corners because, you know, there's a top-line issue, your sales are down, you have to keep the product good. Now let's talk about the category. It's challenging. Eliza, my colleague, a barber, wrote a great piece about the beverage industry. Headline was, have we hit peak beverage? The conclusion was probably doesn't affect you because you're already in the market. I think one thing she pointed out in the piece, and it's clear, is that beverage is heavy. So to ship this stuff is impossible. Right, right, right. I just want you to address this idea that this is a very crowded field.
17:37There's definitely a lot of copycats in the Better For You sort of field. I love your face tells it all. all very challenging, but you're still trucking away in this beverage category. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, what's this? Like, just comment on the crowded nature of the field. Yeah, you can start just. Look, I mean, I do. I think that there's two major issues that, like, I don't think we've hit peak beverage. I think there's going to continue to be interesting opportunities. So that's my personal perspective. I would have hoped that would be a personal perspective. I would say additionally, though, I do see kind of the two biggest pitfalls associated with beverage brands that I think that contributes to their high termination rate.
18:22I think one is the well-meaning, small-scale food producer, maybe a little hippie-ish, maybe a little whatever, who thinks, hey, I got this cool recipe or here's this cool ingredient that I really love. And so they slap something together. They have no idea what the capitalization requirements are. they have no idea how difficult it is just to get a distributor you got to have x amount of sales promised 100 yeah i mean that was even even you know david and i my business partner starting olipop we had already gone through beverage company together had experience uh and even still the first time we sold into a distributor they were like you go sell into x number of right you need to give them the number and when you've done those accounts we'll come back and we'll distribute you and we just did it we got little cars and we sold in yeah it's like chicken and egg i mean you have to create sales all over the same thing with funding and staff You need staff to compel the investors that you can actually accomplish some of the things that you want the funding for.
19:15But you need funding in order to compel the people to come and join. Entrepreneurialism itself, though, is just packed with Cat 22s. I mean, that's just the nature of the beast. So you've got your kind of small, oftentimes well-meaning entrant who just has no idea what it's going to take and gets eaten alive. um sometimes those those folks get um seen by vcs and then the vcs kind of come in and that is a whole other game they have their their distributor that they work with prefer they'll float you some yeah or they're like hey i can see this person doesn't really know what they're doing but they've got a really good idea so we're gonna quote help them and and they can that can build a successful company but it doesn't oftentimes end up taking the shape that the person who got into the business you know the the company in the first place maybe thought it would go i think the other Another common pitfall is you've got a little bit more of your, like, MBA person who maybe does have a little more money and has a little bit more business acumen.
20:08But oftentimes there, I think the challenge becomes they're looking at white space. And so they're quite – White space. Yeah. They're basically kind of just being like, oh, cool. It's a trend. I'm going to capitalize on this trend. I'm going to throw the badge on the thing. And so there's – you know, to, like, put it somewhat plainly, there's not a lot of heart behind what they're doing. No. And it still can sometimes be successful, but it's hard. You've got to bleed for what you're doing. Yeah, and you really got to keep your eye on the ball. And if a VC is telling you to do something totally different, you just got to pack it in.
20:40Okay, so tell me about the biters, the copycats, the people who are doing what you're doing that you innovated. How does that make you feel? Well, it's interesting because at the end, it's a double-sided sword. It's a double-sided sword because you do need multiple entrants to make a category. So when you're talking to a retailer, when you're talking to a distributor, it's actually, if you were just off there on an island, you know, you get to a certain size or maybe that wouldn't matter. But especially in the early days, it's actually a great proof point. It can be a great proof point for investment.
21:10So having multiple entrants is great. Spindrift needed LaCroix. Right, right. 100%. I love Spindrift. Yeah, yeah, shouts. But the other side of the double-sided sword, though, and I think this more specifically pertains to us, is because we are so mission impact driven, we're not just chasing the badge, right? Like in my mind, I'm thinking, okay, how do we transfer as many consumers as is humanly possible off traditional soda? And how do we do that in a way that then shepherds them into something that's actually quite good for them? because high fiber, low sugar physiologically interacts almost in the opposite way with the body that no fiber, high sugar does, like by its nature, right?
21:53And we've got 40 % of the country, according to the CDC, has type 2 diabetes or prediabetes. That number is only going to go up. According to the International Diabetes Federation, a billion people are scheduled to have – or scheduled sounds pretty – predicted to have diabetes by 2050. So it's this type 2 diabetes. So it's this massive metabolic epidemic, which is being driven by high sugar, low fiber. 70 % of Americans have chronic digestive distress. That's a whole other thing. So I actually, you know, Olipop is actually out here really trying to meet customers where they are, give them something that meets that emotional need.
22:31Because we really recognize like, hey, if we don't correct this ship, the trajectory of the ship on a health base. I mean, according to analysis by UCSF, they have like a sugar substitute task force. It's very cool. But there's about$1.9 trillion in health care costs being passed on to the taxpayer in diet addressable metabolic dysfunction alone. And there's probably about, according to their analysis, probably about$2.7 trillion total being passed on to the taxpayer. Yeah, beverage is big. Taxed over here. So when other players get involved and it's clear that their standards are much lower and they're just playing the typical game and they don't actually care about the outcome on the health side of the consumers as much.
23:18But they gain enough traction because consumers are typically a little undereducated in the areas of what is actually healthy and what's not. That's frustrating. I think about two products when I think about Olipop. And I want you to be honest with this because I wonder if you've looked at these two products. I've thought about Zico, coconut water. I've thought about vitamin water, which in New York City, both of those products had huge moments in bodegas, in grocery stores, which is similar to what Olipop has right now. It is huge. I mean, sweet green across the street carries you now. I mean, we have a great bodega downstairs.
23:51It carries like eight SKUs. I think about those brands because those brands are gone. There's no more Zico. There's no more vitamin water. All I think about is 50 Cent, like making a bill on that. What do you learn from these companies? So that's an interesting one. So, you know, I think there's a couple layers to my thought. So one on the Olipop side, you know, and I don't want to be expressing hubris here. But when you are building a company that's driven by flavors that have over 150 years of history with the American consumer, that has this really deep identity-driven relationship. Like, vitamin water was a great brand as a brand mechanic from a brand mechanic standpoint.
24:33Zika was a good brand as well in its own way. But there's not the same kind of historical, the same kind of legacy. Coke and Pepsi are there when people are five, having their five-year-old birthday, right? Soda is built into the American identity and to the individual identity of the consumers. and that is something at Olipop that we are actively seeking to tap into and then also organically tap into. So I think that's a differentiator. On Zico specifically, I think anytime you've got a product that's essentially a commodity, you're going to have ebbs and flows and that's why one is still out there.
25:07Yeah, because there's farming and agriculture required. Right. You talk about it with olive oil. Well, and a Zico and then a One and then a Vitacoco. They're all roughly the similar, and it's actually quite hard to innovate coconut water because coconut water has such a specific... So when you say commodity, it's like a very straightforward, like 85 % of it is one thing. Because somebody can snap their fingers and make another coconut water. So on a commodity basis, I think it's hard to hold down. Vitamin water is a little more interesting. I think it was impacted on a couple different angles.
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25:38First of all, it kind of became... Anytime that a product sells into a strategic, like a Coke in this case, it's going to naturally receive more scrutiny. And quite frankly, it should. And I think it received a little more scrutiny and general consumer education around health and wellness improved. And they were like, actually, the quantities and the types of vitamins that are in here are probably not doing too much. Yeah, well, you got into like pizzerias and you got into fast food. And people started looking at it a little bit closer when it had almost like a mass population appeal and embrace.
26:09And that's also not to forget that like vitamin – this is – I don't know how many other people lost their minds on this. But from my side, they started putting crystalline fructose in vitamin water. I couldn't think of a worse thing to put into something that was going out to population at scale. So I think those things all started to accumulate. And I think what happens is then the brand is going through that kind of turbulence. And it's inside of a strategic, which is a notoriously less nimble organization. And so potentially if it was still being managed by the founding entrepreneur, maybe there could have been the necessary pivoting.
26:45but in this particular case given that now it's in the strategic they're going to be less like you think about this with your trajectory as a company you think about this when thinking about strategic partners people acquiring you etc etc i think you've always got to be mindful about what the long archivage business looks like and and kind of where it might end up and for my side of the equation i'm always just thinking about how does olipop still provide real value to customers 10 years from now, 20 years from now. And so wherever we end up going in the trajectory of our business, which we have not set firm parameters around, but wherever we do end up going, that question will be top of mind.
27:24I got this stat from your team, and it's interesting. So Olipop surpassed Pepsi, Canada Dry, and Mountain Dew in sales in a major national retailer. Yeah. Or is that general retail or just in one retailer? One specific, but very sizable retailer. Tall Mart maybe rhymes with that. Can't say. Can't say. Obviously, you can't say. But it makes me think, you know, when you have those historical brands and you're outselling all of them, like, how do you wrap your head around being that disruptive? Like, to use a word that is used a lot. I know. It's pretty intense that you're outselling Pepsi, Canada Dry, and Mountain Dew.
28:06And our root beer is outselling A &W. you uh i'm more of a hires guy yeah okay so just just saying that's carrying less water with you yeah yeah less water no fair enough um i mean to be honest with you and at the risk of coming off like you know cliche the first emotion that i experience when i deal with that is actually just like you know i'm i'm just i feel so fortunate and um what's the right word i feel it impacts me emotionally that our customer i have talked to enough of our core consumers i've talked to enough cst consumers in general to know what the emotional and historical relationship is between these brands what these brands do mean to people uh and the fact that they would trust dolly pop enough to start replacing some of those the choices what we're doing is huge i mean people will fight for their identity i don't know if you've noticed but people will fight really hard for their identities and a lot of these brands have major identity relationships inside of people's own internal identities so the first that's my that's my first feeling i have the second feeling i have is great that means that we are on track for the thing that we're actually trying to accomplish which is like taking over coca-cola right if we if we weren't starting to be able to be displaced like generate displacement then we'd have a much smaller ceiling in terms of how far we can go and how much impact that we can have than I think we actually do.
29:35How do you fight fatigue then? Because we've, we've, we've, like physiological fatigue. Well, no, you're, yeah, you're, you're working, you're a CEO, so you guys, but though, like fatigue for a product happens, you know, we, we buy and buy and buy and we love and love and we like, and then we kind of maybe don't like. I mean if you were talking to the coke dude that'd be impossible to ask impossible yeah so the your your goal is to create my goal is to create products that fill that same long long standing space that consumers have right so if we start getting feedback from the customers that they're falling out of love with the product I'm I'm really interested in that feedback so we can see how we can adjust as we see how hockey stick growth will will will change and you'll address those needs and you'll, you know, let's get back to your lab.
30:26I just love that we started with flavor because I think that's important because you clearly have it. Do you have a Holy Grail flavor? I mean, for me, I'm just like requesting this is like Mountain Dew, but like the nineties formula, everyone knows who knows Mountain Dew in the nineties was way better. Whole different situation. Whole different situation. Yeah. What's your Holy Grail? Let's get it. Let's get into your lab. Well, I mean, to be honest with you, man, like general, making a good cola was, yeah. And that was the first batch of products we released. I I mean, so in the prior beverage venture that I had, which also was in this territory of health contributing, so it was kind of the – it was a place where I learned a lot about what was and wasn't going to work in terms of this approach.
31:07But that whole time I was like, gosh, I want to do a cold someday, but that would be so easy to mess up. So honestly, getting one out the door and getting it out the door like pretty early on was a pretty big moment in a lot of ways. yeah so you like did that is that your number one skew our top two selling skews are strawberry vanilla and root beer but that's a little misleading because they were also a part of the first wave of products they have the widest distribution I mean orange and grape are having an absolute heyday cream soda is starting to have like really come out of the gate I just don't think of cream soda as having a following it's kind of a have you tried a cream soda?
31:41oh I like your product I'm just thinking in general like it's a tough one it's we suspected it was going to do really well no no it didn't get quite as much distribution out of the gate and then as it started to pick up distribution like i see all the charts coming back from the retailers and it very quickly well the reason it works is because cream soda is too sweet typically and if you can dial that down i've seen cream sodas with 60 grams of sugar exactly it's it's it's you yeah you freak out when you look at the nutrition but you also just don't like it it's palate fatigue yeah but holy grail flavors it's gotta be so so in terms of i instead of giving holy grail flavors i give flavors that I'm like really intrigued by.
32:18I really wanted to make a raspberry sherbet because again, thinking about, I remember being a kid, going to Lucky's, getting the big box of sherbet. Raspberry was always my favorite. So good. I was thinking clearly Canadian raspberry as well. Oh, okay. And then you could have like neon pink merch launch. It could all be 90s supermarket vibes. I kind of want to make a birthday cake flavor which would kind of be the cream soda, but the reason why I'm intrigued it'd be similar to the cream soda but the reason why I'm intrigued by it is like how do I get like yeast and bread notes and like cookie and cake notes in a formula without having it be odd or gross like I like those conceptual challenges same thing with the banana cream yeah banana cream is great but did so the story on banana cream is like I just finished grape and I was laying in bed one day and I was thinking what's the weirdest flavor that like maybe I could pull off but I probably couldn't it's so weird I was like I don't know some like banana cream and I like laughed to myself and I was like I don't know heaven and then whatever it was six nine months later we were talking to Universal about minions yeah and I still hadn't seen it but one of my staff members like oh you know their favorite fruit is banana I was like I like kind of just like I shouldn't say this but I guess it will you know I did have this idea for a banana cream but I like those I'm at a place in my formulation journey where I get really intrigued by those types of formulation challenges.
33:42Do you think about savory? Do you think about the way Dr. Brown's leans into savory a bit? It could be intriguing, but I don't think it would ever match what we're trying to accomplish with our customers. I like having flavors that people would expect, so that's why we cover a lot of ground with the traditional soda flavors, and that's why I did a ginger ale when we already had a ginger lemon. Because when you go try a ginger beer and then you try a ginger ale, they do taste markedly different you know they do actually taste quite different and so ginger ale was this whole other kind of intriguing challenge of like how do you create something that still says olipop still has some real ginger in it because i don't want to bs our customers yeah nothing but flavors uh but is really differentiated from the current offering so i like those types of challenges i mean i did think about how cool it'd be to do an oreo flavor yeah i'm like pausing yeah I love Canfield chocolate soda.
34:33I don't know if you know that brand, Canfield. I have thought also about like a chocolatey fudgy. That's the guy. And I think a lot of people may know that Canfield chocolate soda back in the day. They surprisingly work. Oh, they're great. They're fantastic. Grapefruit. Fresca grapefruit. Yeah, yeah, I know. That's like a real tough one and really. Oh, I could kill a grapefruit. Oh, so let's go. I could definitely do a grapefruit. I know you could, but why isn't it there yet? Yeah, that's a good question. I felt like there was like a love affair with grapefruit. You know, isn't squirt kind of grapefruit?
35:07100%. Fresca, squirt, ting. Of course, Jamaican soda ting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a real like North Star for grapefruit for me. Yeah, that's fascinating. I'm not, it's not off the table. I'd love to see it happen. Because I think Pomplamoose gets too much shine or even Spindrift grapefruit. Those are good products. Like listen, and they're very different obviously. The Spindrift pineapple has got it. That's my one. Yeah. That's my like. We do get a lot of requests for pineapple. There is pineapple in the tropical punch. Yeah, fruit punch is good. Did you ever have that Hawaiian fruit punch? Oh, 100.
35:40With the little boy on the cover? Yeah, whatever is going on with him. So there's a flavor note in our tropical punch that I pulled from my memories of that flavor. But it does have passion fruit and pineapple juice in it. How fun. I know. Does Taylor drink Olipop? Swift? Of Swift. I don't know. I don't know. Hopefully. Does Beyonce? I don't know, man. I'm not sure. I feel it's... I'd be surprised if they never had it. Like, you know, but I don't... This leads into my question. Do you have celebrity fans? Oh, for sure. Do they drop into your DMs? I'm not sure if they're dropping into our DMs, but we definitely have large amounts of celebrity fans and investors.
36:30Yeah. It helps with beverage. It's cool. I mean, I think, look, it's very flattering. But I think a lot of times then to take that initial interest and turn it into something more meaningful, those do become more complex transactions. Yeah. But Camilla Caballo was a perfect example. Oh, right. She's a huge fan. Well, she was paparazzi'd. Yeah. She was drinking Starbuck Vanilla. We're like, oh, that's interesting. And then somehow we linked up with her, and then she was such a pleasure to work with. You know, like that video shoot with her, that's her real family. Yeah. She brought all of them in, you know, for the shoot, and it was this wonderful merger of, like, she was already a fan of the product, and then she really got what we were trying to say about human attachment and social ties and how Soda and Ollipop fits into that territory.
37:29And it actually resonated with her on a personal level. And that's when we knew, okay, this whole combination is right to actually go into from a celebrity angle. I mentioned the Sweetgreen collaboration, so you can buy it at Sweetgreen. I think about QSR a lot with Soda. We drink a ton of Soda at QSR. Can it be in fountain form? there is a future state where that's certainly possible I'm going to guess that it's a state that's in the Utah zone I know about those guys those guys are great what's their name again I forget the name of the top there's drive-thru they move a lot of soda I think they're in Pepsi's top 10 it has a cool name it's like Swisher Swisher Yeah.
38:17Yeah. So it does work in fountain form. It's something that we're looking at for the future. I'll put it in that way. It's cool. I would love to see that. I think that would be really fun to have. I think it's a great, the one thing you have to keep in mind, there's two challenges with fountain from, you know, what I've heard. One is when you own the equipment, it's very expensive to maintain it. But then also Coke and Pepsi do have a lot of lockups. So if you want to, if you want to navigate the landscape, whether it is with quick service restaurants or sports stadiums or any of these other kind of areas.
38:52You know, they're paying to keep that share of mine. And a brand of our size is going to have an almost impossible time ranking that. That's where the strategic partners come in, I would imagine. You are a partner with the Kansas City Currents, which is a professional soccer team. When are we going to see Ollipop on like an NBA jersey? I feel that's going to happen. Similar, that's a similar, we've looked at some opportunities. But first, there's a cost and we have to be mindful about where are we divvying out our funds. And like, is that an area that we want to just, you know, is that worth taking up X amount of the total marketing budget just to go after that one thing?
39:32And then we are also always dealing with the red and blue blockade, right? Yeah, yeah. But we're in favor of it. I love seeing food on jerseys. I don't know. Like, I just love that food can hit the mainstream, like be that cool that it's an NBA jersey. Let's talk a little bit about retail. I like to get a sense of how you think about the big box and also the small indies, because I think your product is prominent in both. You've hinted that you're selling very large as a big box retailer to be unnamed, that they're named. But there's also extreme interest in Olipop in places like Foxtrot, Pop-Up Grocer, bodegas in cities like Los Angeles, Austin, New York, et cetera.
40:14You see it everywhere. How do you, as a company, think about, you know, spreading the love to both sides of retail? Yeah, that's a really interesting question. I mean, UDS is what is the up and down the street is still such an important part of the framework of making sure that you're actually saturating deeply enough into a community, right? So you can, so you do, you are mindful of both. I think, you know, earlier on in a beverage life cycle, maybe you pick a metro or two that's close to your hometown where you do make sure you build some of that actual like, hey, let's go after these bodegas.
40:51Let's go after some of this up down the street. Because you have a street team who can drive out there. That's right. There's an efficiency to it. There's a hometown advantage to it. But then as you start your scaling process, you are really trying to figure out where you can be efficient. And that's where these larger retailers are great, especially if, you know, some of our relationships are direct, which means we have a direct – like we ship the product directly to the retailer into their warehouses and they distribute it out to their stores. Those are really, really healthy and efficient relationships that are great for us as a brand.
41:22But then you get to another stage where you're now saying, okay, we're going to be spreading out how many different metros that we are looking to get that saturation. So both parts of the equation are really important, and you're evaluating the whens and the wheres and the whos and different ways as you're growing throughout the lifecycle of your business. Does it have to be stored cold? Olipop does need to be stored cold. It can spend some time out of the fridge. So we actually partnered with Purdue. We did full stability testing around the product, which is awesome. We have a six-week window where we're fine.
42:00or long-term storage does need to be cold. The driver for that is some of the prebiotics we're using will do something called hydrolyze, which basically means they'll break down and they'll eventually turn into sugar because of the acidity that's in all beverages. And they'll break down and turn into sugar if they're not stored cold. If they're stored cold and we've got all the testing to prove it, they're A-okay. This is also partially what I get at, by the way, when I talk about some of the other players in the industry. There's folks who use inulin who don't refrigerate their products. You can run the math on what the outcome of that would be.
42:40Does this change at all for your product? Can you keep it shelf stable? Can you get to a point where... You can't do that with the current formula. But we're always evaluating what the future holds. I think about retail. You think about channels. You're buying it cold. It's usually cold, which is a huge advantage. But the cold fridge is It's very fast moving. I mean, there's the phrase in the industry, if it's cold, it's sold. That's what I'm saying. People want a cold product off the shelf. That's what is such a great unlock for your company that it has to be cold. It has to be consumed and has to be loved.
43:13And if it's a good product, it'll sell off the shelf. I mean, I'm thrilled with a lot of the retailer relationships we have. Like the way, you know, we've been very – like our product performs really, really well. and a lot of our big retail partners have been responsive to that and then they've given us space on the shelf. Like, you know, I think our average, you know, we're carrying eight, nine of our items. We'll be moving to north of 10, you know. So we're getting a lot of shelf coverage in the cold set and that is very hard territory too. Oh my God. I mean, it's at my shop right in Chester, New York.
43:48I'm super down with that. You know, it's a real acid test for products for me. last question about retail air one like what do you think it's just like like was my emotional relation well i guess that's a really weird question i just said let me back up air one is its own thing it's like i feel like it is a real it sets the the temperature for beverage and clearly their beverage is influential have you gotten close with air one how did what is your relationship with them so you know this is why it is so important that the retail landscape be diverse uh erwan serves a really important function right like sometimes people like oh everything there's so expensive but that all that their pricing architecture allows them to take a bunch of risks and try out a bunch of really novel formulas right you wouldn't have thought off the top that like olipop's gonna work in in erwan last i checked uh i think our strawberry vanilla Olipop is the top selling beverage in Erewhon.
44:50Yeah. Except for their water. Their water brand apparently moves just ridiculous numbers of units. Because it's like actually it's like cultural cashier to carry the Erewhon water around. Right. It's the whole thing. But it's an interesting place where, to your earlier question, you know, celebrities go and shop. But also Walmart will send their buyers out to the field to walk the Erewhon stores to take a look at what's actually coming out next. So it's a very interesting retailer, and I do really appreciate that they explore and they do unearth a lot of brands that do it and end up going out to make it.
45:28Like, it's a great test market. On This Is Taste, we ask guests about their discerning taste. So to close this interview, here's a little rapid-fire Fast and Furious taste check. Ben, are you ready? I'm ready. Your favorite beverage that is not Olipop? I really like Stumptown cold brew coffee I really like Spindrift and I really like sparkling water in general in general I don't actually like the flavor I don't love LaCroix I have no specific problem with them there's no war between LaCroix just to be clear I specifically like Spindrift or I like unflavored sparkling water I got it the best breakfast I like something called savory oats that I make.
46:15It is oats with bone broth instead of water. And then it sounds super weird. But then you throw some seaweed in there. No, it doesn't. It sounds amazing. You make some eggs and you do a little sour grout. And you put it all in a bowl and it's ridiculous. I love this. And it's vegan, it sounds like. Eggs. Oh, sorry. But you can omit the eggs if you want. Throw some tempeh on or whatever. But yeah. Sounds cool. You're a savory breakfast guy. I'm a savory breakfast guy. Do you do chili crisp at breakfast ever? I have. Yeah. I'm a big chili crisp guy. Me too. The best dessert? I like cherry pie. I mean, I fucking love cherry pie.
46:53Cherry is my favorite fruit. You live in the Pacific Northwest. I do. That's great. When the farmer's market's in the right spot, there's like 10 different varieties of cherry. It's ridiculous. Your favorite cookbook of all time? uh so to be honest with you i don't use a ton of cookbooks uh but i also don't really use a lot of so what i'll oftentimes do whether it's a cookbook or whether i go online when i'm looking at a recipe i'm trying to get the base non-negotiables like okay i'm cooking a white fish and so here's where the temperature is going to be and here's the time it's going to be and then i'll look at the basic architecture of the recipe but being like effectively a food scientist like i'll just go off from there and make my own.
47:32It makes sense. I rarely actually, baking you've got to be a little more mindful, obviously. But in general, I don't, I riff off recipes and so I never really use. As a beverage guy, I have to ask you this. An essential bottle of booze to have in your house for entertaining purposes? On like a trend basis, I like a Japanese whiskey and I really like a good Amaro that actually has like, you know, real roots in it, no artificial colors, that kind of thing. Does Olipop work with alcohol? I've never actually thought about that. Yes, it works. I mean, cherry vanilla and mezcal, tequila and watermelon lime, or like a lighter tequila and watermelon lime.
48:12I mixed the champagne and the crisp apple together. Oh, that would be cool. Yeah. Yes, there's a lot of mixing to go with. Interesting. I never thought about that. Your favorite big box grocery store? um you know i i have working with i've worked so i love shopping good costco uh but i also have developed a lot of respect for target like working with their with their corporate team yeah um i have seen a lot of like real care about the customer and their health and like their life i've just felt a lot of respect to them i've developed a lot of respect for target over the past 25 years shopping there.
48:53I love talking to you. It's great. Yeah. Great one. Your favorite smaller boutique, weird, cool grocery store? There's a little tiny one near me. So I live in the Pacific Northwest. I'm in Washington technically, but I'm close to Portland now. I'm from Northern California. But there's a little tiny zone called Well Spent. If you want like Hyper Boutique, there's one of them. Yeah. And it's probably like 500 square feet. but I do actually like Foxtrot quite a bit as well I spoke on a panel with their CEO she's great you know there's a bunch of little no it's cool I love you've got to have your you've got to have your little wonky locals you've got to you've got to support the indies too you just have to go there and make sure to spread out it's fun shopping oh heck yeah well food shopping is the best a couple more your favorite vegetable so I've got like a four way tie going here which I know is like off the but I think like I really like well well made eggplant I really like broccolini.
49:51Okay. And I really like garlic and I really like ginger. Damn. You went all over the place. All over the place. I'm all about it. I like the alec. Speaking of alec, alec are also really good. Last one, your favorite sandwich?
50:04Maybe it's a little basic with like a really well-made chicken salad sandwich with like some avocado and also some sourdough or something. Like that's solid. Mayonnaise paste? Is it more Italian with olive oil? No, give me the mayonnaise. Yeah, maybe a little aioli. Like give me some flavor in there. But, you know, I also really like pesto. So when you've got like a pesto and like a mozzarella and a tomato, like that's also a nice one with a little press on it. Not to stand about Olipop, but if you've made it this far, you know I like the product. I love Olipop and sandwiches. There's something that works really well with a carbohydrate, with a salty meat or turkey, whatever.
50:39And then like the condiment, something like a very umami rich sandwich. I love pairing it with like a Dr. Goodwin or a Vakola. It just really works. I think it's because I just don't like drinking regular soda with it because it just hits your palate. Well, that much sugar plus that much bread versus that much bread plus nine grams fiber. Like that's it. So if it grows together, it goes together. Well, so and also not to get to nerd town over here, but you have this little organ between your stomach and your lower your small intestines called the duodenum. OK. And basically the duodenum sits right next to your liver.
51:15And so when you're breaking all your food down in your stomach, it goes from your stomach, it drips into your duodenum, and then it gets transferred. Fiber coats the duodenum, and it keeps the sugar content of what you just broke down in your stomach from transferring through to your liver. And your body does not like sugar going straight from the duodenum to the liver. It can actually generate something called fatty liver disease, which you can actually be very – your BMI can be just what you want it to be. And if you've got fatty liver disease, you've got a real problem or fatty deposits building up around your liver.
51:43so having fiber with your meals uh is really important for health leave it there thank you ben goodwin this has been such a pleasure thank you for joining this is taste thank you so much for having me what's up eliza not much how you doing i'm good uh you so you slacked me the other day and I was like taken aback. I actually like dropped my laptop on the floor when I saw that you had recently visited Costco for the first time. Yeah. You know, I didn't think people would care so much about this, but there's been many people that have been shocked that I had never been to Costco and like very invested in my take on the situation.
52:29So let's paraphrase for our listeners who don't like shop, who might not know what Costco is. So let's let's let's let's give it some ground like what do you what do you when you think of Costco what do you think of well I had literally never been until last week so I think what I heard about from people was that um they sold really good liquor that was like the same quality as Grey Goose but Kirkland brand obviously Kirkland brand is the Costco house brand so I knew that I knew that they sold things in bulk and that is kind of all I knew going into it because when I grew up in LA I don't think there was a Costco on the West side.
53:04And I also didn't grow up in a family that was like eating things in bulk necessarily. I don't know. I just, the opportunity never presented itself. It's interesting when you bring up the liquor side, because that's such a good point. And when I was editing at Punch, we did a story about Costco and like the tequila is apparently very good and about, you know, 30 % the cost of typical Anejos and Reposados. I think of Costco as someone who grew up eating food in bulk. I think of it as a place that obviously has a really great value. You pay like a couple hundred dollars a year for a membership fee, and the idea is that you're instantly getting that money back, and it's no joke.
53:46I know that they have the Costco card or cash. Those are the only two ways to pay. You can't pay with an Amex or a typical credit card. I know that the hot dog is a dollar and quite good. $1.50 maybe? Oh,$1.50 perhaps. I know that we've written about it, and I'll link to the article in the show notes, how around the country and even around the world, there are regional foods that are found at specific Costco's. And that was something that I loved about that piece. I don't know the general history of like when it was founded. I grew up with Sam's Club and Pace, which were like also big box discounters.
54:21But I think Costco, for whatever reason, and the Kirkland brand is like the top of the heap. Yeah. You know, it was overwhelming, I would say, to go to Costco for the first time. I kind of like don't do well in malls or casinos or like big inside areas. Not a big blackjack? No, I just get like disoriented and I don't know where I am. And going to Costco, we went to the Costco in Astoria. And like even just trying to get a spot in that parking lot, I was like, okay, I need to take some deep breaths because like everyone is on their own kind of. But it was pretty magical. So, yeah, let's get into the actual visit.
54:57You know, it's interesting. You went to an urban Costco, and I've been to the one in Brooklyn as well. But, like, they're very different, I think, in cities. They're quite smaller. I think when you go to the ones in, like, suburbs or small towns, they're much larger. Oh, I can't even picture one that's bigger. That's crazy. Yeah, yeah. The one you went to, I would imagine, is probably maybe 75 % of the size of some of them. Like, was there literally a car in there? Not that I saw. So in Costco's, I've been to Costco's where there's cars. They sell cars? Yes. Well, they're like demoing tires, I believe.
55:27They might not sell cars, but they have literal cars in the middle of Costco's. Well, they were selling like computers and all of those things that I didn't know. I feel like people talk about like the bakery or maybe like the canned goods or something. Let's get into that. But tell me, when you walk in, what's happening? What's going through your mind? Tell us a little bit about the visit. Well, so, okay. So I got a new apartment. So I had a need to go to Costco to stock up on paper towels and kind of essentials, basics, those kinds of things. and my girlfriend loves Costco and she's a member and she's been wanting to take me.
55:57Oh, Shirley's a member. Okay. She's a card-carrying member. She's been to the one in Taiwan. Like she like, she has a Costco sweatshirt, which you can only get outside of the U.S. The ones in the U.S. say Kirkland on them, but the ones in Taiwan say Costco. Oh my gosh. She's two actually. I'm really like, this is the Shirley episode, I guess, because she's the one that took me and she loves Costco. And I was kind of reluctant, but I had this need to go. And so I went to get like paper towels. I got like a big stepladder kind of like basic things for the apartment and then She said I was most excited about the canned goods section, which I think is probably accurate knowing myself I really like went in in that regard So when you were going to the canned goods were you did you check out the like ortiz a giant tins of fish there?
56:38They have that. Oh, I bought a six-pack of sardines. Oh, yes, I bought a six-pack of goya chickpeas I bought another six-pack of the But this one brand of coconut milk that I like. Yeah. I can't remember the name of it. And then they also were selling three packs of San Marzano whole peeled canned tomatoes. Yeah. Which was incredible. And the price was so good on them. And I was just loading them up into my cart. Then I realized I had to carry everything. That's the thing about New York when you got to like lug everything. Yeah. Well, we had a car. So that was like very easy, that part of the process.
57:11But I think that it's crazy. Like things change. You're inside the Costco and I'm like, maybe I do need a five pound bag of pistachio. because the price is so good. And then I didn't get it because five pounds of pistachios is a lot. I know. And I look at like the when you look at the Greek yogurt and you get like a brick of like, you know, eight Faye like big boys. And it's like, yeah, that looks awesome. And then you're like, where am I putting this stuff? Yeah. And some things we got to split. Like we got a giant thing of kimchi that we split into two. We got a five pound bag of dino nuggets and split that into two.
57:42Five Pambay. Yeah. I kind of feel like there needs to be like a Costco urban like crowd share program where there were so many things that I wanted, but I just couldn't get that much. I know if you go to like bodegas in New York, you'll see folks like unloading their groceries from Costco because it's like where that community kind of, you know, sources the goods and bodegas. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And also the$5 rotisserie chicken. I don't even understand how that's possible. Yeah, I know. The prepared foods is almost I mean, it's an absolute loss leader. But I guess it's almost to a level of like, is this stuff even good?
58:17But, you know, the hot dog's pretty good. I've had it before. Yeah, I didn't get the hot dog because we were in Astoria. So there were so many good places to get lunch around there. I kind of made it into an excursion. But a lot of people were very upset that I didn't go to the food court and try the hot dog. I think that people love Costco when someone hasn't been before. They want to like have everything be validated, especially working in food. A lot of my friends were like, what do you mean you didn't get the hot dog? What do you mean you didn't get the one thing? did you get a chance to go to the bakery uh i did go to the bakery but again it was kind of in bulk i didn't need like a dozen muffins and i heard that the stuff in the bakery goes stale like kind of quickly oh really you heard some it's probably true in my experience i've never bought breads there but so i have a deep connection with costco around the holidays mostly thanksgiving and in costcos around the country and i'm sure listeners will recognize this.
59:06Around like mid-November, they start selling their pumpkin cheesecake. I love pumpkin cheesecake. I do too. It's truly one of my favorites. And their version is so, it's gas, it's fire, it's everything. It's fireworks. It's everything you wanted. It's absolutely perfectly smooth. It's industrial in the best possible way. I think the crust is usually a graham cracker crust and here's the thing it's eight bucks it's eight dollars for a whole cheesecake a big one a really big one it's i think they put them out and i know i was looking on tiktok i'm going to try to find this maybe link to the show notes there's like a overhead um you know a video of like a time lapse from of the bakery section of when the pies are put out and it shows that them selling literally 1 000 of these pies over the course of a day that's crazy and i guess when you think about the price when you're doing things at so much scale like that's where that price comes in in part you know definitely and they put the bakery in the back of the store obviously so you walk past those higher margin goods like definitely the electronics are higher margin they make way more money on those and they you know the subscriptions like they they sell like like security cameras and things like that that are you know nice well priced but certainly they make more money on those yeah my stepladder was maybe not a good cost margin compared to all of the other foods but yeah it was it was really crazy and also i think for me like going into winter and soup season like all of the canned goods that i mentioned that i bought like i'm gonna run through those i would go back to costco with other people and who want to split like large quantities of things with me like i totally see the appeal i think if i had a family like i would want to be a member i think to be like a person living on their own it's kind of like a lot to be buying yeah it's a great point you bring up listeners are certainly in families and have kids And I think that's definitely cost effective to go to Costco once or twice a month or even more and buy.
1:01:00The meat is pretty good there, too. And you can buy like large packets of chicken, beef, and obviously hit up that pie. Hit up a pie or two when you're there. Yeah, I guess I have to go back and get the pumpkin cheesecake. Yeah, definitely get back. So now that I know that Shirley is a fan and you've been, do you think you'll be returning anytime soon? Yeah, I guess. I don't think I would ever be the person that's like, we need to go to Costco. But I think if there was a trip that was happening, I would definitely go and stock up on all of those things and maybe like get the five pound bag of pistachios this time.
1:01:35Because I freaked out about it, but I could have just frozen them. You could have definitely like found a way to store them. There's something like existential about when to go to big boxes in New York because we live busy lives and you certainly don't want to kill like a Saturday because it's like precious time off. Yeah, it was a big day. But, you know, actually taking the subway from Astoria to our office is incredibly easy. So, you know, maybe it'll happen. You're thinking of a field trip? Yeah. Because you're proposing. I think we have to go with Shirley, though, because she's our way in.
1:02:04Let's do that. We'll come back to you guys in a bit with our dispatch from Costco. Live in the aisle. Live in the aisle. Live in the pistachio aisle. Thanks for sharing, Eliza. Thanks.
1:02:20This is Taste is hosted by Eliza Abarbanel and me, Matt Rodbar. The show is produced by Shalia Harris and Pat Stango and edited by Clayton Gumbert. Theme music by Steve Rydell. Visit Taste online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter for updates on all cool things that are happening.
From the publisher
For over a decade Ben Goodwin, the cofounder of Olipop, has been building a better-for-you soda that aims to change the soda game, disrupting the big boys at Coca-Cola and Pepsi and offering a high-fiber, unusually addictive beverage to discerning millennials. Well, dang, 2023 was most certainly the year of Olipop and Ben joins us in the studio to talk about it all. He details how he developed flavors like Vintage Cola, Crisp Apple, and Tropical Punch, and digs into the challenges facing beverage founders. It’s really fun getting to know Ben. I hope you enjoy this episode.
Also on the show, Aliza shares about her first trip to Costco! Has she been bitten by the big-box bug?
Do you enjoy This Is TASTE? Drop us a review on Apple, or star us on Spotify. We'd love to hear from you.
MORE FROM OLIPOP:
We’ve Hit Peak Beverage [TASTE]
We Built Olipop: A $20 million a Month Soda Company in 5 years [CNBC]
Lessons from Scaling Olipop [The New Consumer]
What Your Local Costco Says About You [TASTE]
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