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[00:00:47] Ray Latif: Hey folks, I'm Ray Latif, the editor and producer of Bevinette's Taste Radio podcast, and you're tuning into the latest episode of Elevator Talk, the series that profiles early stage and disruptive brands from across the food and beverage industry. Today's episode will focus on five beverage brands whose entrepreneurs will have an opportunity to hear feedback and advice from our co-host for this episode. That's Beth Brown, who is the founder of S3 Connect. Beth, it's great to see you again. Great to see you, Ray. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Thanks for coming back on the show. This is your second appearance on Elevator Talk, and I was so lucky to be able to meet you in person at BevNET Live in December and Marina Del Rey, which I thought was a tremendous event. I hope you had a good time as well. Yes, absolutely. For folks who may not have gotten to see that episode of Elevator Talk with you or meet you at BevNET Live, please tell us a bit about yourself and your work with emerging beverage brands. So I mostly help food and beverage brands by simplifying and connecting their supply chain planning their process and decision making back to their financials. I try to keep it simple so they can be agile and flexible and it's really. My background is mostly in beverage, but I've been in supply chain procurement operations for my entire career, and now helping out both small emerging and growing up to large brands through my own company. And I also work with Aggregate, who is at BevNET, and we did a little co-presentation. They work with much bigger beverage brands, but I have a good perspective from both sides. Well, today we're going to be meeting with entrepreneurs from five early stage brands. And, you know, just for context and to kick the show off, I think it's always important to talk about the circumstances of scaling a beverage brand, which as we all know, is a tough thing to do. But in 2026, you know, I always talk about challenges. What are the opportunities you see for small and emerging beverage brands today? I think there's more opportunities now. It's funny, we just talked about this yesterday on the non-based podcast, a little bit about what's changing with co-manufacturing. So there are increasing opportunities to find the right partners. So there's more and more companies out there who are finding they have available capacity in line time and are getting away from only producing their own brand to producing for young and growing companies. And then there's also some opportunities just making sure that you're nailing the right format, brand, packaging, but most importantly, those who can get in with a foundation and really understand their cost structure, they will find more opportunities than their counterparts. Well, I am excited, very, very excited for you to meet the five entrepreneurs that I mentioned. Beth, are you ready to meet our first? Absolutely. Outstanding. That person is Jordan Bauer. He's the founder and CEO of Flirt. Jordan, it's great to see you. Hey, nice to meet you guys. I'm surprised no one's had a beverage brand with this name before because it feels so intuitive to what you're doing. Or at least I think I have a sense of what you're doing. Tell us all about Flirt. Absolutely. Okay, so we live in a hyper-digitalized world for a long time now, right? People for a while have forgot how to meet people IRL in real life and have real meaningful human connection. And I think the down spout of that is that we're seeing less people going out, less people drinking, less people going to dinner parties at friends' houses, less events, because we're stuck in this digital world. So I think because of that, we see the next generation really, really desiring that more analog, aggressively human, like real connection that we used to have before we're at now. So come flirt. This is a aphrodisiac social tonic. We've realized that a lot of the aphrodisiacs that are normally seen as a more intimate, more something that you might only see in a bedroom, or a gummy, or a mint, or a chocolate, we see that the benefits of these herbs actually have a strong social side as well. Some of the herbs, specifically in this MVP flavor that we have, outside of just the flavors of lemon, ginger, chrysanthemum, the herbs that you're going to be feeling are horny goatweed, tanga ali, and maca root. Specifically, what's happening is these herbs are delivering more blood and oxygen to your brain. And when that happens, you get more dopamine, you get more serotonin, you get a decrease in social anxiety, you get an increase in confidence, a boost in your mood. And in a world where functional beverages, in my opinion, are chasing that THC feeling, that floaty feeling, that CBD feeling, most of the functional beverages that we see, doesn't help a hyper social IRL presence that a lot of people are longing for, that they can be in present, in the mood, in the moment, and just connecting with the other humans around them. And so this is kind of like the excuse to get back out and meet people IRL, meet people at a bar again, go have a dinner party with your friends. And this is keeping you in control, this is keeping you hyper just kind of focused and ready to tackle the moment. So yeah, we're excited. Okay. I've counted the number of questions I have. It's up to 102,000. Beth, I think you have about a couple more as well. I really do have a lot of questions, but I'm going to wait for Beth to ask hers. But I got to ask you, Jordan, ahead of time, are you sold anywhere yet or just direct to consumer? I mean, I also noticed you're trying to raise a seed round of 500,000. Absolutely. Yeah. So we are regionally distributed here in Missouri. I'm, uh, based, my whole team is based here in St. Louis. Uh, we have, we started earlier this year, direct to consumer and just kind of self distribution. We quickly got into a lot of bars and restaurants and kind of like small little bodegas and then recently picked up a distributor called Lore, uh, spirits and wines. And so we are now regionally distributed throughout Missouri. Nice. Nice. We'll, we'll come back to the, uh, the seed round in a moment, but Beth, uh, like I said, I'm sure you have some questions ask away. Sure. I'm curious just if you are self-manufacturing or working with a co-man. We're working with a co-packer here locally. So we've developed the formulation with this and two more SKUs that we have coming down the line here in Q1. And it's all being packaged here in town. Great. And any challenges that you're facing at the moment with that relationship? No, so this is our third co-packer. So there was a lot of challenges for the first couple, trying to just nail down the right formulation, making sure that the right amount of herbs and ingredients were all being kind of put in, because I feel like the first couple of co-packers we were dealing with kind of quickly blew through our products. And so now that we've really, really nailed that down, we have an incredible relationship with our current co-packer, really gotten our cogs like fine-tuned, our margins are fantastic. And so we are, yeah, we're really, really happy with that. I'm sure the question that you always get, and I don't even know how you answer it, which is why I'm asking is, how do you know if it works? I mean, like what is someone supposed to, I know you said you're getting sort of a flighty feel, similar to that of a THC or CBD, but you call it an aphrodisiac drink, so I think the expectation is perhaps more than just a social tonic, more than just, I don't know. So when you talk about functionality and efficacious, the efficacious feel, what should people be expecting? Absolutely. So we've done a ton of events, we've done a ton of tastings, we've been, we've showed this drink to a wide variety of young audience to old audience, and we've gotten a lot of feedback. And what I love actually is that the felt effect that you feel in around 30 minutes, that felt effect actually varies, and it's pretty wide. We've gotten everything from body warmth to like physical effects. We got everything from like just overall body warmth and body flush to more of like a Zen kind of in the head, kind of like focused feeling that people sometimes get with the nicotines. And we've also just gotten just overall boosts in just overall, like just confidence, just in the mood, just ready to, Yeah, just very, very, very present. And so, the effects are wide because I feel like these herbs, depending on your makeup and your body, affect you in different ways. So, for example, the maca root is a more natural stimulant. It's a natural energy. And so, we've had a lot of people say that just this can alone is delivering you the energy that sometimes you would feel in an energy drink. even though there's no caffeine in it at all. And then other people just have different effects across the board. But we call it an, I'm gonna actually talk real fast on that. We call it aphrodisiac kind of very pointedly because A, it's disruptive in its nature. It's something that you don't ever see on the shelf, especially in a consumer facing product. And we see that there, especially in the next generation, people forgot how to date. And so you're seeing specifically, this is kind of our niche category that we're really trying to nail. Singles events are being sold out. There's massive dating shows that are going across the nation that are selling out full venues. Singles specifically desire to know how to meet other people that's not behind a screen and not behind swiping. So that's what we're really trying to, from a messaging standpoint, really target and be like, this is the entryway back into that world. I mean, I love that you found a point of differentiation within this increasingly crowded social tonic space, this non-alcoholic beverage space, because it is getting crowded. It is getting very, there's a lot of sameness there. And so calling yourself an aphrodisiac beverage, I think, helps you to define yourself in a very specific way. On the other hand, Beth, Sometimes it's good to be niche at the outset, but if you are talking to a broader set of consumers, maybe that messaging, maybe that communication isn't necessarily the path to getting to a more mainstream audience. But what are your thoughts? I think it depends. I think that in regards to, you know, your messaging, your whether it's on social media or website or whatever it is. I think if you're going after a specific market, go after it first. If you want to diversify, then it'll come with time. I'd say grow slow and learn from your mistakes, learn from your successes. And the same thing, I would say quick advice on the ingredient side. It sounds like you've got some fairly complex ingredients. Um, make sure that you're, you know, sustaining your supplier relationships and creating backup relationships and make sure that you're sort of getting the specs vetted and tested and the product itself. Same thing, just because like you said, you're relying on those really specific ingredients, um, to sell your product. And you want to make sure that, you know. the origin is known and you're able to get the same quality, you know, just so you can share that information with your consumers. 100%. Yeah. All of our ingredients are sourced here in America and they have all been third-party tested. And so, yeah, we're very, very proud of that. Again, Jordan, I love the name. I'm looking at your Instagram page right now and it feels just, it feels so authentic to who you are and vibrant and exciting. It doesn't feel like it's over the top at all. And I feel like that is actually a good thing when it comes to investors because you don't wanna scare anyone, but you definitely wanna make it clear that you are different. Again, in my notes, I don't know, have you finished? Have you completed your pre-seed round of 500,000? Uh, yeah, so we're, we're no, we're currently in the middle of it. Um, we, uh, yeah, I'd love to have that little call out here. Um, yeah, we're, we're in the middle of it and we are currently actively looking for, uh, some, some additional capital, some additional funds so that we can really scale, listen to other markets. Um, our margins are incredible. Uh, our price point on the store is in line with Ken and Gia and recess. It's, it's, it's a competitive, um, it's a competitive drink and we're here to make a big splash. So. If I were Tom Spear from BFG Partners, which is the venture capital firm based in Boulder, the first question he would ask is, oh, so what are your margins, Jordan? Do you wanna share what your margins are? Absolutely, yeah. So currently right now we are upper 40s. Within the next under two years with scale, we're gonna get that up to the higher 50s. Outstanding. Man, I wish we had more time. I'm always complaining to our team about not having enough time to speak with these incredible entrepreneurs, but let's do this again. Cause I think Flirt's on a really good path. I really love what you're doing. I'm excited to hear more about how your journey unfolds. So let's plan to speak again in the near future in the longterm as well, Jordan. But in the meantime, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us on Elevator Talk. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Happy to be here. All right, great start to the show. Let's keep it going with our next guest. That's Ezel Agalarova, who is the founder and CEO of Flying Ostrich. Ezel, it's great to see you. Great to see you, Ray. And thank you so much for having me here. It's great to meet you. And I appreciate you giving brands an opportunity to present their work here. And I wanted to say shout out to BevNET Mike for encouraging me to apply. DevNet Mike, our CRMO, Mike Schneider, he is a champion of emerging brands. And he had mentioned Flying Ostrich to me and he said, you know, that would be a perfect brand for Elevator Talk. And here you are. So fantastic stuff. Flying Ostrich, another F-named brand. And I love the name of this one as well. Tell us all about what you do. Sure. Flying Ostrich is a daily functional hydration beverage. We're one of the few ready-to-drink options focused specifically on daily hydration on the market. And we are sparkling, which is a little bit less common for the hydration space. And by ready to drink, I mean we come in a can. Flying Ostrich is on a mission to save us from low-grade dehydration that comes with a modern lifestyle. We launched in two flavors, mango and blueberry, and our slogan is hydration for modern living. We all get slightly dehydrated throughout the day in one way or another, and it has compound effect on our bodies. For example, long flights, stress from work, commutes, getting sick, or even having a slice of pizza. We are caffeine-free, low calories, low sugar, and our hero ingredient is Aquamin. Aquamin is marine sourced form of magnesium that comes with naturally occurring 70 plus trace minerals. It's more bioavailable and we offer premium ingredients, natural flavors, no artificial colors or preservatives. And we are purely hydration focused, meaning there's no ashwagandha or other calming ingredients in our formula. And a little backstory, because a lot of people ask, what's up with the ostrich? Our mascot, Ozzie, as you can see in the background here, He flies unlike other ostriches. And we like to position ourselves as doing something different because there's not many daily hydration focused replenishment options in the market. And a little about our price point. We sell on the website today directly at $3.49 per can. And we also recently filed a trademark for Flying Ostrich. Also another brand where I have a ton of questions. Let's just go to the easiest one first. I know you're pretty new. Are you sold anywhere right now? I know you're based in Brooklyn. Yes, yes, we are based in Brooklyn, so we're selling DTC online and we're seeing some good customer feedback and traction. We're also organically expanding into local coffee shops, bodegas, stores. There's one grocery store announcement coming soon. So yes, you can find us in your local stores and coffee shops and the list keeps growing. When you say store, do you mean a retail chain or? Like local bodega stores, local grocery stores, yeah. Well, one, I wanted just to say hi to Azel again. So we actually met in California at BevNET. So this is our second meeting and we're both not too far from each other on the East Coast, me being in Connecticut and you being in New York. Excited to see you again. And curiously, it sounds like there's a, some of the change since we spoke, um, back in December was sounds like you're picking up a little bit of steam as far as you said, grocery. Okay. Yes. So how are you preparing for, um, is that going to be through a distributor versus right now you're just doing direct to consumer and very local retail. Yeah, it's a great question, Beth, and it's great to see a familiar face here. We are self-distributing for now, and we're testing out the response with the local stores, but for now it's self-distribution. And once we scale, because we started doing this recently, expanding recently, once we scale, we'll look into working with the distributor. And the other question I had for you was, I know that you are a hydration beverage that is sparkling. And so who's your, I can't remember exactly what we talked about back in December, but I remember that your target market certainly was not the sort of athletic community. It's more of the modern lifestyle every day. But tell us a little bit more about your specific target market. Sure, sure. That's a great question. So we are, as you correctly pointed out, we're focused on daily hydration and the target customer is a busy professional with, you know, stressful, maybe stressful lifestyle, always on the go, working late hours. So we don't have a specific, you know, age reference for that, but busy professionals living in, you know, big cities is our target customer. I love that you're using magnesium. It looks like you're using a form of magnesium that I haven't necessarily been exposed to or familiar with. And it's ocean-based magnesium, is that correct? Yes. Yes. It's magnesium from a marine source. Feels like magnesium is definitely having a moment. You know, recess, trip, some of these brands right now are finding traction because consumers are more aware of the benefits of magnesium. How much do you promote that ingredient in your communication? I don't necessarily, I can't see it in the front of the can, but is it an important part of your messaging? Yes, yes, it is. And we'll revise the messaging on the can for the next production. But we're definitely leading forward with highlighting magnesium as our hero ingredient. And it's, as you correctly stated, Ray, it's gaining popularity and a lot of customers are interested in it. And given it's one of the more expensive ingredients in our formula, we will definitely be you know, leading our communication with that. Yeah. On that note, Beth, any thoughts or tips or insights into ingredient sourcing and sort of, you know, planning for the future when you're thinking about your short-term strategy and your longer-term strategy, how would you advise entrepreneurs into locking in contracts for important ingredients like magnesium? Great question. I think what you're doing as far as the focus is great. I think the next step is making sure that you've got really good and you're comfortable with your supplier network, not just on that ingredient, but in all your ingredients. Obviously, that one's the most critical and important. truly understanding your source, the origin, the, I'd say, end-to-end supply chain for that ingredient, making sure that it's sustainable and that over time, is there any seasonality in the availability, in the quantities? So it's really just truly understanding the most critical, you said costly, but also critical just in terms of your messaging and Your branding that ingredient. So I would say that just go, you know, do your due diligence and also like Ray asked about contracts. I think that, you know, a lot of these. younger entrepreneurs and brands shy away from. They say, well, we don't have enough volume. But I think most of it's transparency around future, like what are your projections look like? Talk about the long term. Talk about where you see this going for towards the end of 2026 into 2027. Get the suppliers excited about talking long term about you know, volumes and pricing, so that you can get a better sense of maybe where you are today is not where you'll be at the end of the year, and then you can start to plan accordingly. Absolutely. Thank you for that advice, Beth. I am staying close to the suppliers, always in communication with them. We've carefully selected all the suppliers and ingredients. For now, we're taking one step at a time, but it's definitely a great advice to look into the long-term and stay connected. Yeah, don't be afraid to share information with your suppliers. So treat them like a true partner and make sure that you have, you know, an alternate supplier that you've tested that would be acceptable if any of your suppliers have any challenges, because we all know that those seem to be sort of the norm today instead of, you know, infrequent like they used to be. Absolutely. Absolutely. And we're going to try to do, replicate the same process with everyone, right? Have a backup co-packer, have a backup supplier just to be on the safe side. Perfect. Excellent. Indeed. Ezel, have you had an opportunity to send samples to the BevNET office? I didn't get to try your product at BevNET Live. I don't know if you had it there. I have not had a chance to do that just yet, but I'll connect with Kendra Cooper somebody else on BevNET side and share the samples after this. Thank you so much. Beth definitely tried it at BevNET Live in December. Yes, it was amazing. I have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised, even though I'm not a blueberry fan, the blueberry flavor was so subtle and extremely hydrated. That's awesome, because you don't typically see a lot of blueberry flavors, at least real blueberry flavor in beverages. I'm a fiend for mango, so your Mango Go sounds like a really, it sounds like something that I would really enjoy. So I'm excited to try that. Azel, really appreciate the time. Thank you so much for sitting down with us for this episode of Elevator Talk. Please stay in touch. Let us know how we can help in any way. You know, I think a lot of people look at BevNET and BevNET CPG Media as just a media company, but I really look at us as a community organization. We're really out there to help early stage brands scale in a way that's going to be fruitful for them and do it in a way with the least amount of missteps and pitfalls. If brands succeed, we succeed. If we can't write about brands that are doing well, we're not gonna have a lot to write about. So please let us know if we can help in any way.
[00:26:56] Beth Brown: Will do.
[00:26:56] Ray Latif: Thank you for having me here. Let's get to our next guest for this episode of Elevator Talk. His name is Andrew Schindler. He's the co-founder of Chuh. Chuh Matcha, that is. Andrew, it's great to see you. Yeah, good to see you, Ray. How you doing? Good to meet you, Beth. I am really excited to have you on the show, Andrew. I was introduced to Chuh last week at the Winter Fancy Fair. And the first thing I noticed was this just striking branding. You have absolutely fantastic packaging. Thank you, I appreciate it. And I was just laser beamed. I was like, I gotta get to this booth, I gotta try this product. And certainly matcha, talk about an ingredient that's having a moment. Yes.
[00:27:36] Beth Brown: Yes.
[00:27:37] Ray Latif: Chuh, tell us about the origins and development of your brand. Yeah, absolutely. No, thanks for having me on. Yeah. So Chuh, Chuh was really a solve, uh, for a personal need. So, uh, I used to be a coffee guy like many people and would have my normal morning cup of coffee. But for me, even just that one cup would give me jitters and anxiety. Um, and a 2 p.m. coffee crash, as many people experience and view as normal. And so a few years ago, I broke up with coffee, as I say, and in my quest for a new caffeine partner, I found matcha and fell in love and loved the benefits. You know, for those that haven't tried matcha or don't know much about it, it's essentially Green tea leaves ground up and you're kind of consuming the entire leaf so you're getting a ton of antioxidants with matcha and the other key benefit is Within matches a compound called l-theanine and so the caffeine is releasing more slowly into your bloodstream So you don't get that spike and crash like coffee. It's a steady energy and so enjoyed drinking it would make it at home with the bowl and the whisk but traveled a lot for work and there really wasn't a few years ago a good ready to drink option if you were at the airport or the convenience store something that could just be a good grab and go and so my wife and I dove in. It's a totally new industry for both of us. I actually come from the film industry. My wife's an interior designer by background. But this was something that we were really excited to tackle. And our goal, you know, I was never a black coffee guy, nor was I a purist matcha drinker. I always enjoyed, you know, having a, you know, maple cinnamon or some sort of flavor with it. And so we wanted to strike the balance with cha. of being healthy. We have organic ingredients, ceremonial grade matcha, but still tasty and enjoyable. So similar to our last brand on, we have a blueberry flavor, a little nod to our home state of Maine, and a spiced vanilla, which is a chai vibe type flavor. And yeah, we launched in July and it's been awesome. It's been a really fun launch here in Maine. focused mostly regionally at first. I think for us our goal was to really win in retail. We by all means have a website and the DTC channels there but as I think probably many founders on this Elevator Talk have experienced beverages tough online, you know with shipping and weight and so we really wanted to win the retail battle and so Excited to share, you know in our first six and a half months here We've sold just under 15,000 cans and are in 125 stores primarily in the Northeast And yeah, our goal is just to make matcha easy and something you can grab on the go. Up till now, it's really been making it at home and you have to have time and the bowl and the whisk or being in the coffee shop. And I was recently in New York and I got a small eight ounce matcha latte and it was $11. And New York's obviously extreme, but even in Maine for me, I find it to be seven, eight, $9. And so we SRP at 4.99, which is, Slightly above you could argue it's on the higher end of the category for RTD but I think it falls in line with people's expectations of matcha being a more premium product and We're having a ton of fun with it. I think matcha as you said Ray is really having its moment and so we're just leaning into it and trying to grow this as smartly but fast as we can It's fantastic. And I tried your product. I really love it. And I've tried a bunch of RTD matcha drinks. And I think some have been on the side of, OK, this tastes really indulgent and delicious because there's a lot of added flavor or milk or what have you in it. And then on the other hand, you have ones that are just matcha and water, which can be a little rough for a cold RTD. Yeah, and I think that hits on a really important point, Ray, of I think for a lot of, you know, there's obviously a huge crowd of people that love the earthiness of matcha, but I think there is, including myself, a crowd that like it, but don't want it to be too grassy at the end of the day. And so I think that was a big goal for us to strike that balance of still having the earthiness that matcha delivers, but with fun flavors that anyone could enjoy and be a good trial or entry point into matcha for people. Yeah. Beth, do you like, do you like your matcha? I am, it's growing on me. I'd say my, my daughter, um, almost 20 year old college student is, uh, an aficionado for sure. We just got the whisk and the bowl and the whole external grade stuff at home. And, but she, you know, she struggles to be able to find a place to drink it at school. So I'm interested cause she is in the Northeast, um, Massachusetts, actually right around the corner from, from BevNET's offices. So I'm interested to hear, like, how have you made traction in the Northeast and what, do you have, you know, a particular consumer segment you're going after? Like, is it more of the, you say, coffee shop, matcha shop type drinker or any age range or any background? Totally. No, it's a great question, Beth. I think for us, We we see matcha is, you know, generally, I mean, much has exploded in America. But the two segments, obviously, that really love it are Gen Z. I mean, I hear all the time, oh, my 14 year old loves much of my 20 year old loves matcha and obviously millennials to love it. And so I think for us, Part of 2026 is continuing to grow and we are excited post-winter fancy fair, having some really meaningful conversations with some larger distributors. We've been working with two regional distributors to help us in this region, but looking to grow across the East Coast and beyond, but especially in food service. I think you bring up a good point, Beth, that hospitals, universities, airports, I mean, heck, cruise ships, you know, like, I think there's a lot of environments that, you know, for students, a quick grab and go when they're on the way to class or a hospital when a nurse is on break and just needs something quick, or environments like airlines or cruise ships that, you know, they don't have time to be making a whole matcha behind the counter for their guests. I think food service is a category we really want to lean into this upcoming year. And, see how we can break in. So universities in the Northeast are a top part of our strategy for this upcoming quarter and year. Great, great to hear. And do you currently have your product in the Northeast? Where would we find it? Yeah, absolutely. So in terms of, we're in about, I said, about 100 stores in the Northeast, 25 through like fair outside of the Northeast. But in terms of kind of major spots in the Northeast, for Maine, Rosemont Markets in the Portland area, Pemberton Farms in Cambridge, all the Rusty Lantern convenience stores, which are 30 across Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine, and then a lot of independent. So a lot of the more natural grocers across Maine, and then some farm stands in various spots in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Very exciting. Definitely need to try your product. And actually, I'll have to have my daughter. We'll find a way to have her try your product. Yeah, absolutely. Have you considered an alternate price point to capture if you start to get into that food service, especially in the, you know, obviously, you know, Boston or Massachusetts in general is one of the highest, I mean, certainly have more disposable income, but they're also the highest population of colleges and universities in the United States. So if that market's appealing, I don't, you know, you sort of wondered, have you considered a slightly lower price point? Yeah, it's a really great question. And I think it's something, especially as we improve our cogs and kind of our margins, you know, our first run we did last year, you know, we were, you know, in more like the $1.98 range in terms of cost, but we've been able to drive that significantly down to being more in that kind of $1.50 range, which helps put our margin around 40%. And I think as we continue to improve that and kind of improve efficiencies, which is your expertise, Beth, I think we would explore like a $449, maybe $399. I think what's interesting is there's a couple other matcha products on the market. that are at $399, but at an 8-ounce size. So I think it's one of those kind of tricky mindset games that we're continuing to think through with consumers is we're slightly higher priced, but also you're getting more product. But where is that kind of sweet spot where someone sees that value to spend maybe a little bit more for a little bit more product and a higher quality product at that? Well, Andrew, I'm rooting for you. I gotta be clear and honest about this. We've seen a lot of matcha drinks come to market, a lot of matcha brands come to market, and some have had a little bit more success than others. I do think the timing is right now. I think when I first saw a brand like Matcha Bar, for example, come to market, I wonder if you know, awareness and education and excitement for matcha. Yeah. Had been a little bit of a, you know, drawback for them, a little bit of a challenge for them. I think right now the time is right for a brand like Cha. And so I'm really excited to see where you guys go with this and definitely want to stay in touch and let us know how things are going. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Ray. And great to meet you, Beth. If your daughter can't find it, let me know and I'm happy to send you some cans as well for you to try. Oh, thank you. Yeah. And I'm sure she would tell all of her friends. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, thanks so much, guys. Really appreciate it. Thank you so much, Andrew. Let's definitely stay in touch. Let's keep it going with our next guest. That person is Jacobia Solomon. She's the founder and CEO of Sipside. Jacobia, it's great to see you.
[00:37:59] Beth Brown: Nice to see you too.
[00:38:01] Ray Latif: Uh, I am excited to speak with you because, uh, what time is it? It's 140 here in the Boston area. It's, it's time for a, it's time for a cocktail, isn't it? At least in my opinion, I don't know.
[00:38:11] Beth Brown: It is always time for a cocktail, but what about a mocktail?
[00:38:15] Ray Latif: Yes. Well, exactly. Exactly. It's a perfect time for a brand like Sipside. Uh, tell us all about what you do.
[00:38:22] Beth Brown: Yeah. So again, Jacobia Solomon, I'm the founder of Sipside Mocktails and I'm a little bit of a newcomer into the CPG space. I have a proven track record in other industries as a visionary innovator and strategist in driving business expansion. So, you know, I started Sipside Mocktails really from a personal place. For years, I've really seen like friends, families, including myself, where you enter social and professional settings and you're limited to alcohol, soda, sparkling water, or something that may be not so inspiring options. And it creates a space of, I would say, awkwardness. I always have this thing that I never have to explain my yes, but you want me to explain my no. And so people ask questions on why you're not drinking. And so for me, it was a way where I wanted to see, I started to see confident, creative adults really seeking experiences over drinks. I'm all about a good time, good company, good conversation. good food. And the drink is definitely a part of creating that experience for me and desiring connection. It really is just celebration and being present in the moment. I do see myself as an aficionado of mocktails and have been ordering them well before they got popular. And so I will tell you, it's always been at the forefront of my mind to put something out that really enhanced people's moment in the celebration or in a different environment. And I will tell you, the tipping point for me was, you know, I was out last summer at a Dallas rooftop bar. We were celebrating with friends, and I asked about non-alcoholic options. And I was given the usual spill, soda, juice, sparkling water. And for $12, they would actually make me a virgin mojito, which is basically muddled mint and lime with club soda. So not a lot of enthusiasm around that. And so I looked around. Everybody's enjoying beautifully made drinks. And I really kind of felt like an afterthought. So, you know, I thought, hey, you know, it's not because I don't drink alcohol. Honestly, I just never really acquired a taste for it. And not because I didn't try, but because, you know, really I just look at like, there's a lack of something that's truly inspiring for people that seeking the experience like me. And so I decided to jump into this process and jump into this journey. And I really wanted to create something authentic and not, you know, create substitutes. So, I'm not a spirit that's trying to taste like a Cosmo or Margarita. You know, I really just want to put original flavor experiences out there that can really stand on their own. And so, I started experimenting, playing with botanicals, natural astrags, unique flavor combinations. Again, I wasn't trying to replace alcohol. I was just trying to create a beverage that's worth celebrating. And so I look at Sipside Mocktails as really redefining the non-alcoholic beverage experience with bold, original profiles. We are a Dallas-based brand. Really creating a premium, ready-to-drink mocktail using really, like I said, all natural ingredients, botanicals, no artificial flavors. I'm not imitating cocktails. I couldn't really tell you what they all taste like, to be quite honest. And just really, you know, just about creating a signature flavor that you can't find anywhere else. We are at the beginning of the journey, and we have had our preliminary rollout earlier this month with a full launch scheduled for March.
[00:42:09] Ray Latif: Jacoby, you pointed out a problem that people have been talking about for some time, which is that there's nothing really exciting or there hasn't really been a ton of exciting innovation in the non-alcoholic cocktail space. There's so many brands coming to market, but what really stands out, what really makes you want a particular product? And I think when I think about the term mocktail, it almost means like you're missing something. And I think with the sort of the flavor, the flavor forward approach that you're taking, it definitely feels like it's adding something to the category that it didn't have before.
[00:42:51] Beth Brown: Yeah, no, I totally agree. Again, you know, for me, it's about definitely that flavor profile. When I pick up my drink, I want to experience something. I want it to enhance the food that I'm eating and really excite my, you know, my flavor profile, my senses and get me all excited. Well, look good like I'm in the party, not on the outside of the party, right? So it's about the color, the taste, and it really, you know, when I think about the flavor profile and how it matches up, it's it's, you know, I'm not promising anything, you know, shout out to all the other brands that that do other things like functionals in and make you feel good. This makes you feel good naturally, right? It's about your taste buds being excited.
[00:43:40] Ray Latif: So Jacoby, what I'm curious about is I actually did get a chance to take a look at your cans, which are quite bold and beautiful. What surprised me, because I was expecting sort of, you know, you say premium, really interesting ingredients, like interesting extracts and flavors mingled together, but I'm a label reader. And when I looked around at the label, I saw something that I didn't expect, which was mostly just juice and natural flavors. And yes, 100% natural and healthy and not too high in calories, but I was hoping to see, and I was just wondering if you were thinking at all about pulling out you know, these ingredients that you're proud of, like that, that are part of this craft cocktail that you've put together, like what are the extracts that are combined into these natural flavors? What are the call-outs? Like what makes your drinks unique? I would be really excited to see more or hear more or have you showcase more of that. Cause I think that, you know, that would really resonate with the consumer.
[00:44:46] Beth Brown: Yeah, no, I totally agree. And my originally the can design actually did call out some of those flavors or abstracts. And yes, there's some juice contain some juice. And it's natural juice, so it's high premium juice. And so just with all the labeling and the requirements and space, I kind of got rid of that. But as far as the community, that we're really kind of growing around the brand, because it is a brand more than a product. And so, in that community, it is definitely talking about the clean ingredients, the botanical forward, no artificial anything. And it is a flavor first philosophy, right? Not functional, not health claims, just exceptional taste. And so, In that community, we talk about the ingredients. We talk about what's in there. And so I have a newsletter that goes out. I have, you know, I'm really, you know, jarring it up on socials around it because I just want people to look at it and really create brand loyalty around Cipsci. Absolutely.
[00:45:59] Ray Latif: Jacobia, one of the things that I think is difficult for the category of non-alcoholic cocktails is that the margins for on-premise are probably not as good as simply mixing cranberry juice and seltzer water and charging $10 for it. The restaurants and the bars are probably making, I don't know, 1,000% profit on something like that. So that being said, are you shying away from food service? Are you looking to sell your product more in stores? Or are you going back to that rooftop in Dallas and saying, hey, instead of serving your customer something that is kind of boring and less exciting, why don't they try a sip side?
[00:46:45] Beth Brown: Yeah, I mean, as far as my market segments, they're pretty open. You know, I have a couple of opportunities in the pipeline and some are your restaurants, catering, even airlines at this moment. And so just different places and also as well as college stadiums. And so just looking where I can get a different option. So it's not just focused on restaurant or bars, but definitely going wider with the focus, like I said, on clean labeling. The calorie count is pretty low, and so you can look at it as just a healthy option. And so it definitely offers something different when you think about, and you know, again, it's celebratory. It's about being able to drink sip side in different spaces.
[00:47:34] Ray Latif: Yeah, it definitely feels like it has that kind of sort of different experiences, different day part use, different kind of settings where Sipside could fit in pretty easily. So I think you did a really good job on that front. Jacoby, I can't believe we're out of time. Where did the time go? This is not fair. This is not, okay. We'll make up for it another time because I think there's a lot to talk about when it comes to Sipside. Thank you so much for taking the time to sit down with us today.
[00:48:02] Beth Brown: Appreciate the time and your input, both Ray and Beth, and just really would love for your listeners to try Sipside. Definitely visit our website at SipsideMocktails.com. Follow us on Instagram to join our community. And really, if you're a retailer listening, reach out. We'd like to partner and really bring value, premium, innovative beverages to your set. So thanks again, Bethnet, Ray, Beth, for having me on this show.
[00:48:29] Ray Latif: Thank you so much, Jacobia.
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[00:49:41] Ray Latif: All right, onto our final guest for this episode of Elevator Talk. We have Moses Alvidrez, who is the founder of Freshwater Aguas Frescas. Moses, it's great to see you. Great to see you too, Ray. A big fan of your work, BevNET, and just the information and the resources you guys provide on a daily. So just want to thank you for that. Well, thank you so much for saying that. And we're truly honored that you're joining us for this episode. Aguas frescas is something that talk about a category or at least a type of beverage that just has just been yearning for more brands, more ready to drink brands to get into. It's just, I feel like every single year we see a new one come to market. I just want to see one explode. And I think Freshwater might have that chance to do so. Tell us all about what you do. Well, thank you so much for that and the acknowledgment of the category. Yes, it's obviously been around for years and decades, I should say, but since 2020, you've seen a rapid expansion of the category. So Freshwater Aguas Frescas, it's a family-owned business. I'm one of the co-founders, me and my two brothers. We're a team of five. We are a modern take on traditional indulgence of aguas frescas. Normally, if you're not familiar with aguas frescas, There's really a standard recipe list for it. There's water, a juice base of some sort, and a ton of sugar. Where we are different is we use no added sugar whatsoever. We use a high-quality sweetener tandem of monk fruit, MV50 monk fruit and RebM95 stevia. So we try to go high-quality on that. to deliver a traditional taste that someone can be familiar with, along with traditional flavors, but still eliminating the junk and, you know, allowing a guilty free conscious as you're drinking this, you know, can consume multiple throughout the day, and still give you that, you know, that traditional Hispanic experience. So we started our company in 2022. We've rolled out our first product in early 23. We really tried to set out from a personal experience of having family members with diabetes and saying, hey, let's try to offer something different. Let's see if someone even wants a healthy agua fresca with no sugar. We went very minimal with the label. We went two skews with the hibiscus and strawberry. And we hit the streets, guerrilla marketing style, seeing if mom and pop franchise-owned restaurants and convenience stores would be interested. And to our surprise, we had a great response on our simplistic packaging and flavor design. So we did that for a solid year. We gained about 120 accounts throughout Southern California, just self-distributing ourself, a lot of reactive play, taking orders as they came in and things like that. And that led us to 2025, where we did a full rebrand and relaunch in July. And we really took a position of, we're going to rebrand ourselves, We're going to change our packaging. We're going to rethink this thing the right way. And we added on two new SKUs. We reformulated. We originally started with sucralose, just to try the concept of no added sugar. That completely went away, and we repositioned ourselves last year. As a truly better for you, our fresco and since that rebrand Ray, it's, it's been great. We started putting ourself out there a lot more in terms of the startup CPG events on the bed net live that we attended in December, and those have opened doors to some great relationships. We recently got brought on with High Touch Distribution, and they're going to be our distribution partner for Gelson's that we're rolling into in mid-March. We'll be going into their juice category for the 27 stores. So we are extremely excited, as that will be our first retail partner. We will still continue to support our local distribution network, which we brought on two small distributors that are in the Southern California area. And we are trying to go inch wide, mile deep in California. expand our network and really just support our customers, give them what they need, find where we can help create value, whether that be in marketing pieces, more in-store demos, and really just get the promotion of the brand out there. And yeah, we're in a very, very exciting build-out phase right now. It's been extremely exciting for 2026. We have a big grocery store that we've been talking to for uh, with sprouts for, uh, for mid summer potential release. We're still in communications and getting ducks in a row there, but a lot of exciting things have happened since July of 25. Outstanding and Gelson's. Are you guys in, you're going to be in Gelson's next, uh, next quarter? Yes. Outstanding. Outstanding. Glad to hear that you're working with Hightouch. Chuck and Zara are fantastic, and that's a really great partner to have for sure. Absolutely. You know what's really cool about Freshwater? I feel like you're taking an approach that's different from other brands in that it feels more approachable. I'm not hating on other brands. I'm not saying that other brands aren't doing a good job with their marketing and their positioning. It almost feels like, especially with the bottle that you're using, like a better for you vitamin water. Is that fair to say? Yes, very fair to say you know when we first rolled it out we we we went through iterations of the name how we're going to go out and you know the water really stood to us having the name water in in our name and reason being is, you know, things like vitamin water they they they pack a connotation that. someone, you know, is expecting something on the lighter side, maybe not so juice heavy, and that's kind of what we were leaning towards. So although aguas frescas is a literal translation into fresh waters, it is something that we try to play on, you know, just being a standalone word of fresh, and then water, and then actually bringing them together to create that experience. So yeah, you're absolutely right. We try to make it extremely approachable with a standardized bottle. And we do try to keep things simplistic in terms of leaving a cut and stack label so that you can actually see our liquid. We realize a lot of people put Aguas Frescas in cans and other vehicles that really limit your juice visual. We're very big on whether it's, you know, whatever bottle we go to in the future, if it stays this way, we will always have something that you can see the liquid because in our world, you see our asbestos before you drink them. That's such a good point. I mean, in the colors that you're using, they're really bright and bold and vibrant. I'm also glad that you stopped using Sucralose, Beth. Yes, I was going to say, I agree with that one for sure. I was just going to ask the question on, Have you experimented with sort of the balance between the monk fruit and the stevia? And I applaud you on the choice of Rev-M, although there's many, I would say there's the trend right now that we're seeing is there's a lot of, I don't wanna call them proprietary, but there's a lot of blends. And there's more and more research being done on how do you mimic the taste of real sugar with not just monk fruit and the better grades of stevia, Rev-D, Rev-M, but shockingly adding a small amount of a natural sweetener like honey or cane sugar sometimes makes a huge difference and it only adds like minuscule amount of calories. So I'm just curious if you even thought about continuing to work on your sweetener combination as you scale? And then the second question was really more about your, right now it seems like there's, despite the amount of hydration drinks and I would say, you know, better for you energy drinks, there still seems to be a miss in servicing, you know, stadiums and then also players, you know, young athletes who are looking for something better than water. And I just happened to know it because I have a daughter who's an athlete and she does not like any of the flavors or sweeteners. Like everyone's going at was almost, I'd say it's a cookie cutter flavors. So it's amazing and refreshing to see that was not meant to be a pun, but it is really nice to see you putting out flavors that are much more are less traditional and much more creative than the traditional hydration type drinks. Thank you for that, Beth. I appreciate the feedback. And yes, we get it all the time. Hey, Moses, can you do a tamarindo? Can you do a horchata? And it's like, I get it. These are traditional Mexican flavors. But we really want to try to keep the marketing the same. We don't really want to try to have a separate product that's going to go refrigerated or in a milk section. We try to, you know, keep things the same way. So thank you for that. And just to answer your first question. Yes, we actually went through a very extensive and it was a lot of work going through multiple iterations with our drink formulator of let's go just REB, you know, REB, just REB-M. Let's go, you know, REB-M95, REB-M90. Let's do the mix of the monk fruit MV50. We tried a ton. We tried a little bit of sugar. We found that it is a proprietary blend with the, with the REB-M. It's through Ono Sweet. the OnoSuite brand, which we found is amazing to work with. So, huge shout out to them. They've been a great partner to work with for small and upcoming brands. But yes, we found two particular brands of MV50 and the Rev M95 OnoSuite that work extremely well for us. And yes, we've kind of stuck with that, but by all means, we have a small lab in the warehouse that we go in and we're constantly just tweaking things just to see if we can always be better. As much as I love a horchata, I think you're spot on that it's not necessarily a mainstream type of product and probably would be something that would hold you back a little bit versus get your brand and your name out there. Last question is Antonio Gates going to be a spokesperson for Freshwater at some point? Absolutely. That's the plan. I have Derwin James, Justin Herbert's on this wall. And yeah, that's the plan. The LA roots are hopefully will be very deep soon. And, uh, and then it'll all just come full circle. The colors kind of coincide too. So, Hey, it's not what a coincidence, right? And Ryan go bolts. I saw the SD. Yeah. Brian, our video editor and producer, he's a big Chargers fan as well, and I was definitely rooting for him. Despite being from the Boston area, I was rooting for the Chargers, so anyway, we'll leave that at that. I'm a Bills fan. You didn't have the Tom Brady jersey on, huh? Heck no, no. I'm a Bills fan, I'm just gonna leave it at that.
[01:00:22] Ad Read: All right.
[01:00:22] Ray Latif: Okay, okay. Moses, it's been great speaking with you. Thank you so much for sitting down with us. Definitely want to stay in touch and let us know if we can help in any way. Once again, glad to hear that you're with Hightouch and let us know how things go with Sprouts because we definitely want to report on it for BevNET. Absolutely. Will do. Thank you for your time, Ray. And thank you for your time, Beth. Appreciate it. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Outstanding. Another great show. So many interesting concepts coming to market, all varied. I mean, When I talk about how brands can help enhance their operation strategies and make sure that they're prepped and buttoned up for the future, I think the first call, or at least one of the first calls they should make is to you. For folks who want to get in touch with you and your team, or at least you, you specifically, what's the best way to do so? Um, they can go onto my website, which is S3connectsolutions.com and there's a contact so they can get in touch with me there. And they can also reach out to me on LinkedIn as many folks do. And certainly, if needed, they could. Lastly, send an email to Beth at sreconnectsolutions.com, but easy enough to get in touch with me, happy to just have exploratory calls to see how I can best help and wish everyone, like you said, it's a crowded market out there. There's a lot of innovation, just want to see brands succeed and set themselves apart by really understanding how they can optimize. connect their planning to their cash flow. At the end of the day, they've got to have the margins and the volume. But I think that everyone we talked to today, super exciting brands, a lot of potential out there. I definitely agree. Well, Beth, once again, thank you so much for being with us on Elevator Talk. I have a feeling we'll go for the hat trick later this year or sometime in the future. But in the meantime, please stay in touch. And if anyone wants to get in contact with Beth and somehow didn't get her contact information from all that, just send me a note and we'll make sure that happens.
[01:02:26] Beth Brown: Sounds great. Thanks for having me, Ray.
[01:02:28] Ray Latif: Absolutely. And thank you so much to all the entrepreneurs who joined us today. Thanks to everyone watching or listening. And thanks for our amazing team at BevNET, Nosh, and Taste Radio, the best in the business. Signing off for everyone, I'm Ray Latif, and we'll talk to you next time.
