[00:00:00] SPEAKER_01: This episode is sponsored by PacTec, delivering beverage multi-packing you can trust. PacTec's handles are made from 100% recycled plastic and are fully recyclable, helping beverage brands reduce waste and support a circular economy. With a minimalist design, durable performance that prevents product loss, waterproof functionality, and custom color options, PacTec keeps products secure while letting your brand shine on shelf. Trusted by leading beverage brands globally. Learn more at Taste Radio.com forward slash PACKTECH.
[00:00:52] Ray Latif: Hello, friends, and thanks for tuning in to Taste Radio, the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food or beverage. I'm Ray Lateef, the editor and producer of Taste Radio, and I'm joined by my co-hosts, John Craven and Melissa Travers. In this episode, we revisit three interviews from Taste Radio's Miami meetup, featuring Spencer Slane, a founding member of early stage investor network, The Angel Group, Megan Klein, founder and CEO of fast-growing non-alcoholic cocktail brand Little Saints, and Conrad Barrett, who leads U.S. operations for AB InBev's at-home beer platform, Perfect Draft. We need a Perfect Draft here in the office, I'm just saying. I know, I was talking to Conrad about that. And? You know, look, I hate to admit it, but that Stella Artois off the Perfect Draft was pretty tasty. Yeah, I don't know it's not not really my beer otherwise guy mr.. Bougie over here.
[00:01:51] John Craven: I like Guinness is that really more?
[00:01:53] Ray Latif: Well you just need a B and Bev to buy Diageo, and you're good to go yeah, they just get working on that but In the meantime, I was like, when is this perfect draft gonna come to Massachusetts? I mean, I couldn't believe it, but Massachusetts, not really high on the list for AB InBev. Because people actually go out to bars a lot. A lot. I don't know. Yeah. Or we go to Dunks, you know? Well, the day we start to see beer at Dunks, I don't know. That's when the apocalypse hits, although we're pretty damn close to that. Anywho, Expo West is over. which I'm happy about. I mean, I loved Expo. It was fun. It's too short. It felt a little shorter. It did.
[00:02:31] Melissa Traverse: Yeah.
[00:02:32] Ray Latif: Just give me a third day back, not this half day. Yeah. Friday was pretty dead.
[00:02:36] Melissa Traverse: I was there in the morning. I didn't stay for it, but because I did last year. Well, there you go. I'm going to sound like Ray for a second, hating on Expo West, but I'm really not. But last year it was like crickets and tumbleweeds and people who were still there.
[00:02:50] Ray Latif: A lot of hungover people, which I appreciate that people had fun, but... You appreciate that people got banged up? It just would have been better if we still had Saturday where, I don't know, being a little banged up on a Saturday morning feels a little more appropriate. I didn't even make it to the main hall. I did the North Hall, Hall E, and I think I walked through the main hall, but didn't really get to stop at all. Hall A. Yes. Which one's the arena? I didn't hit that. No, Hall E was downstairs. Yes, and then Hall A is the main one, right?
[00:03:16] Melissa Traverse: Yeah.
[00:03:16] Ray Latif: Right, right, right. Didn't get to the arena, unfortunately. I did get upstairs to all the hot products exhibits, which is like basically brands that are zero to two years in. Felt like Hall E was more established. entrepreneurial brands. Hall A was all the big players, the big corporate giants. And the beverage sort of, I don't know, what do they call it? Something like that. Beverage pavilion?
[00:03:38] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[00:03:39] Ray Latif: The beverage aisle? The beverage aisle. And of course the North Hall's brands that are a little bit later stage than zero to two years in, about two to five years in and growing pretty quickly. It kind of, I don't know, at this point it just felt like a mix of everybody everywhere. But I did hear from some folks that it would be better if you did have categories grouped together, like the coffee folks here. The, I don't know, baked goods folks here, et cetera, et cetera. But then, of course, you don't accidentally run into a product or a category that you may not be looking for, so. This is true. This is true. Great vibes at the show, though. Yeah. Absolutely. Definitely a good time. Yeah. Good to meet a lot of the new folks in the industry, bringing awesome and really innovative brands. to the markets. Please stay in touch. Send us your stuff to the office. Send us your stuff and definitely let us know how things are going. Apply to join us for an episode of Elevator Talk, which of course is our series that focuses on early stage and disruptive brands in food and beverage. If you want to learn more, just email us askatasteradio.com. If you are in the New York City area, heck, if you're in the tri-state area, we would love to see you next month. If you're the bridge and tunnel crowd. Yeah. No, that's so, that's just like, that's like calling people from the 128 loop here in Massachusetts. If you're from the North shore, that's basically what you're saying. I'm originally from Long Island. I'm making fun of my people. I can do that. All right. It's okay. Okay, fine. If you're from Metro New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, anywhere in that area, we'd love to see you on April 16th, that's a Thursday, in Times Square. Now, note, I know Times Square can be all chaotic and crazy, but where we're holding the event is pretty damn awesome. It's at the offices of Anchin. which is a best in class accounting tax audit and advisory firm. We're expecting a big turnout. Of course, we will have all kinds of networking opportunities. You'll get a chance to hear from some amazing folks with our live podcast interviews. And of course, there will be drink, food. And if you haven't had an opportunity to meet Melissa Traverse in person, this is an important opportunity. So although I will say this about Expo, I don't know how many times your name was mentioned, Melissa. It seems like everyone knows who you are, which is awesome. I'm in good company. And I want to share a hot tip for all those folks who might be new out there as well. Make sure you go to nonbase.com, which is our how to build this platform. Taste Radio is how I'm building this and how I built this. Nambase is how to build this. So definitely head over there for lots of expert advice with the Nambase podcast, with our educational series, our partner directory, and of course our Slack community.
[00:06:29] Melissa Traverse: How about how to not F it up?
[00:06:30] Ray Latif: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, learn from all the people who already effed it up so you don't have to eff it up the same way. Melissa's email address is mtraverse at devnet.com. Definitely reach out. Please do. All right. I also want to say that we are holding, and I've said this before, many more Taste Radio meetups later this year. Austin in May, Chicago in August, San Diego and San Francisco in September, in London in October. Learn more about all those meetups. and how to register for them at Taste Radio.com slash meetups. Thank you so much to our outstanding national partners, Vibrant Ingredients, and Belay Solutions. I love that name, Belay. Belay that order. I don't think that's how they say it, bud. Well, I think it's a naval term, belay, like when you say belay that order. I think you're right, yeah. Yeah, sure. Whatever, bro. If you're interested in sponsoring our New York event or any one of the other six Taste Radio events happening later this year, email us at askattasteradio.com to learn more. So many more made-ups. Yeah, there's another one that we are involved with, but we're not hosting it. It's on April 23rd. John and I will be back in Southern California for Naturally San Diego's annual Naturally Rising Pitch Competition. I'm going to be hosting the event, which is awesome. It'll be my fourth time. John's going to be in the crowd heckling. He already said he'd do that.
[00:07:47] Melissa Traverse: She stole my line.
[00:07:48] Ray Latif: I'm going to be like, get off the stage, you clown. Nice blazer, dick. All right, I probably went too far on that one. Yeah, the Naturally San Diego Naturally Rising competition is amazing. That community is just fantastic. They are so supportive of early stage brands. Everyone is trying to help each other build and scale their businesses. And I feel like that's why you see so many successful brands come out of that area because they have such a fantastic community. I mean, they also get a lot more sunshine than we do. You know, it doesn't hurt. It doesn't hurt. I mean, San Diego, best weather in the country. If you're generally tanned, physically fit, you're probably gonna be happier and it's gonna make you happier to build a business versus saying, I don't know, Fargo, North Dakota. If you're in the area and thinking about attending that event, you definitely should. It is just a party every single time. and you get to meet amazing people. I've met a bunch of retail buyers at that event. There are investors who attend. You're going to meet your fellow entrepreneurs as well. It just is a really, really fun time. Melissa, you should make the trip if you can. Yeah, sounds great. Yeah. And of course, The big one, the granddaddy of them all, BevNET Live. It's going to be back in New York City on June 10th and 11th. We're expecting our biggest NYC event ever. It is without a doubt a can't miss show. I love BevNET Live in New York City. I love it. There's so many interesting retail opportunities in New York City with DSDs and bodegas and, you know, one-off retailers, that kind of thing. And it's so interesting and exciting to see people collaborating and sharing their learnings and what they're doing and how they're doing it. I mean, the density of retailers that sell beverages there is just, I mean, there's nowhere else like it in the U.S. Absolutely. And so if you're thinking about attending, not only can you attend, you can do store visits, store check, you can literally talk to owners and managers at bodegas. It's a really good opportunity to be in the city, especially at that time of the year when, you know, you're just before the rush of tourists coming in. It's a really, really good opportunity to be in the area. We've already announced our first round of speakers, including Richard Laver, who's the founder and CEO of fast-growing energy drink brand Lucky Energy. He's also the founder of the fantastic brand Kate Farms, which has expanded beyond its core focus on hospital nutrition and into, or should I say, back into protein and meal replacement beverages. Of course, our favorite folks in the UK, or perhaps some of our favorite folks in the UK, Olivia Ferdy and Daniel Curry, who are the co-founders of Trip, they'll be speaking at the event, as well as Laura Taylor, who's the founder of Mingle Mocktails. She's going to be on stage with Samantha Fletcher. The incredible, amazing, I'm out of ways to praise this woman. She is the Senior Category Merchant or a Senior Category Merchant at Whole Foods Market. You don't want to miss that conversation on stage. Get your tickets now. BevNetLive.com. Tickets are going fast. They are going fast.
[00:11:00] Melissa Traverse: I mean, definitely faster than last year, which was also our biggest New York event ever. So.
[00:11:05] Ray Latif: I've heard so many founders talk about how they got their first retail opportunity with, you know, Whole Foods, for example, at BevNET Live, so many other retailers and investors. It really is such a big opportunity.
[00:11:15] Melissa Traverse: Yeah. So many great stories that I'm sure also our marketing team will bombard everyone's email inbox with.
[00:11:23] Ray Latif: We're pretty good at that. Sorry. I mean, I'm not marketing this event. Oh, I guess I am indirectly here, but I mean, I will say, you know, half day iced tea. I did a podcast interview with one of the founders last year and how did he meet his lead investor? He met him at BevNetLive. True story.
[00:11:42] Melissa Traverse: I mean, lots of brands that fit in that boat, all the way up to the athletic brewing.
[00:11:46] Ray Latif: Exactly. We love to market that connection. I mean, why wouldn't we, honestly? I mean, you never know. It's kind of...
[00:11:54] Melissa Traverse: You know, it's very different than going to an Expo West where you're there to like try to write orders. Right.
[00:11:59] John Craven: And certainly BevNET Live and many of our events have a track record of, you know, making these connections that, you know, I suppose to some extent probably didn't have, I'm sure they didn't write the investment deal on the show floor. That'd be kind of hasty and weird. Right. Although, you know, enough free alcohol, you know, you never know.
[00:12:17] Melissa Traverse: But anyway, it's interesting to see how these things play out. You know, the connections that are made and yeah, I mean, that's always like the best part of the show.
[00:12:25] Ray Latif: For sure. Now, Melissa, you recently spoke to a trio of investors, continuing this funding discussion on the non-base podcast, which was, I thought, a fantastic episode. And it felt like it sort of gave you the perspective of the founder in the investor's voice in a weird way. And this is because. Yeah, so CADOOT, C-A-D-O-O-T-Z, exclamation point, is a cracker brand position for kids that was started by three industry insiders. Kiva Dickinson, the founder and managing partner of Selva Ventures. Rachel Mansfield, who is a food influencer. She has a huge reach on social media and with her website and a bunch of other venues. And then Jordan Carpenter, who is also an investor and has been in this space for a long time. So I saw that they had launched Kadoots and I thought, what would three people who know the ins and outs of CPG do differently than someone who, you know, like we were talking about before, come from a totally different industry? And they really were so forthcoming and generous with the ideas that fueled the strategy that helped them build out this brand and how they're planning on continuing to build it smartly. So they talked about things like why they were using certain premium ingredients like 100% extra virgin olive oil, why they cut out other ingredients because they didn't make sense and they were expensive. Kiva was talking about how they set up product costs and pricing and how that affected their cost and their margin structure. So they really did kind of get into almost like a case study of how to build a smart, strategic brand. The thing that was so eye-opening for me is that, and the name of this podcast is lessons from investors who decided to build their own CPG brand, which is pretty straightforward. But it's almost like if you're a founder listening, you're getting inside the mind of how would I build this, you know, as an investor? And I'm sure that Kiva and Jordan and Rachel have their own personal take on how to build a brand, but I think that mindset is pretty similar to other early stage investors out there, or at least CPG investors out there. It's almost like if you listen, you can understand how to speak to other investors via this discussion. And you know, before heading into this interview, part of me was thinking, well, do they just have unlimited capital? And they can, I mean, you know, it's not that hard to build a brand if you can throw an endless amount of money at it, but they don't, that's not actually how they're doing it. For example, Rachel was talking about the PR strategy and how she was building out these PR boxes and exactly how she was shipping them and who she was shipping them to. So I do think that the lessons are completely applicable to brands of all sizes and brands with all resources, including basically none.
[00:15:27] Melissa Traverse: And I would, for the record, say still hard to build a brand sometimes when you're throwing infinite money at it.
[00:15:34] Ray Latif: Right, right. Does not fix everything. Right, right. It helps, but it doesn't fix everything. I could share some examples, but I won't.
[00:15:40] Melissa Traverse: Well, you know, it's the old best way to get a million dollars from a CPG company is start with 10, right? Or something like that. Yeah. I mean, we've seen it happen.
[00:15:49] Ray Latif: We definitely have. We definitely have. My goal with the non-based podcast is for anyone running or building a brand to be able to walk away with, you know, at least one or two pieces of actionable information that they can go ahead and apply to their own businesses to help run things more efficiently. And here, I think really the PR strategy that Rachel is employing and her social media strategy, and then Kiva's notes on pricing and margin structure are two really strong pieces of information that will help everybody out there. What's next? What's up this week? So this week I am going to be talking to Sherry Fry of Nielsen IQ to sort of match the, all of the trends and products we saw at Expo West with all of the data that she is tracking too at Nielsen IQ to sort of help us understand what we saw at Expo West and how that's going to predict what we're going to see for the rest of 2026. Outstanding. Once again, nonbase.com is the website. So I don't really shop at Target very often. I think a couple episodes back or a few episodes back, I did actually go to Target because it seemed like they had brought in a bunch of new brands or at least introduced and debuted a lot of new line extensions for existing brands. But it seems like Target's pretty bullish on the food and beverage industry. Our dear colleague, Lukas Southard, covered a story about how Target is expanding their stores into new food forward concepts. They're going to be debuting these new stores across 2026. They're planning to open 30 new locations. I was really interested by the fact that the new prototype stores, these food forward concepts are going to have a food and beverage department that is quote 30% larger than the chain average. So I'm hoping that means that we're going to see a bunch of new brands on their shelves, like as in their selection is going to expand more than say, they're just going to carry different types of, you know, fruit or produce or what have you. Certainly I expect that we're going to see more fresh products and more commodity goods as well, but if I were an early stage brand or emerging brand, I would be trying to reach out to Target immediately and figure out, well, how much of that new space is going to be allocated to better for you and innovative brands. And making sure that those stores also align with the regions that you're looking to launch into. And, you know, ideally in your home region, so you can go and check on things and kind of understand how things are working for you. Yeah, and it's good news for Better For You brands too. I mean, Target has been moving in that direction of adopting and carrying Better For You brands over the past two, three years. Last month, Target announced that it was removing artificial dyes from its cereal selection and formulated its Good & Gather brand products to be free of artificial flavors and sweeteners, synthetic colors, and high fructose corn syrup. You can read all about Target's strategy with these new concept stores at Nosh.com. Good stuff. It is good stuff. Also earlier this month, our dear colleague Monica Watrous wrote a story about Mezcla. Mezcla is a brand of protein bars that has a nice crunch. How would you describe the crunch, Monica? That's my favorite protein bar and really one of the only ones I buy. It's almost like, and actually this is a trend that I saw a little bit of at Expo West. It's almost like a Rice Krispie treat. It's a little bit crunchier than that, but it has like a Rice Krispie texture and then it has a layer of enrobed, like they do white chocolate or regular chocolate, that kind of thing. Yeah, so they're plant-based snack bars. They do have that puff, crispy texture, as Melissa pointed out. They're available in more than 9,000 retail stores nationwide, including Whole Foods, Sprouts, Publix, and Select Target, and Kroger locations, as well as other retail chains. Mezcla closed a $9.5 million Series B funding round led by Bluestein Ventures with participation from Centoteric Capital and a few other seemingly respectable venture capital firms. I won't name all of them because there's quite a few actually. You'll go on for a while. I could go on for a while, but congratulations to founder and CEO Griffin Spolanski. I met Griffin in 2020 when we were hosting our Elevator Talk series for the first time, or at least in that format for the first time. And it was when there was no expo and John and Mike had a great idea to highlight what all these brands would have been presenting and showcasing at Expo West via a virtual program. And we got to meet a bunch of founders that had just gotten into the food and beverage industry, needed some awareness, needed to get their name out there, introduce themselves to the community, whether it be a retail buyer, an investor, a distributor, what have you. And so I first met Griffin, I believe it was spring or late spring of 2020. And I was thinking there's all these COVID babies, to use that term, COVID babies that were, made their launch at that time. Certainly, Mezcla, as we can tell, is doing pretty well. I was wondering if there are about other brands that have... Poppy. Poppy's a great... I think that's Topps. Poppy's probably Topps, although they had a little bit of a headstart because they were on Shark Tank and Rohanos...
[00:21:19] Melissa Traverse: They were supposed to launch in Target in March of 2020.
[00:21:23] Ray Latif: You know, I did an interview with Alison and Stephen Ellsworth in 2020 at the time, and I was actually kind of skeptical about this repositioning, rebranding new brand of poppy. Boy, they proved me wrong. You know, Fish Wife, as I remember it as well, was launched during COVID. Yeah. BTR Nation, which was known as BTR Bars at the time. There's a lot of brands. Yeah. And they also launched a Rice Krispie format at the show. Yeah, those were really good. At Expo West 2026, yeah. Unite Foods, which is a maker of more protein bars, a maker of globally inspired protein bars. I think they've done pretty well for themselves since. I could go up and down the list, but if you are an early stage brand or if you were an early stage brand in 2020, a COVID baby, as it were, Reach out, because I want to talk to you. I feel like we should do a, where are you now, with a lot of brands. Pandemic special? Pandemic update? In a sense, yes. With some of these brands that we first met in 2020 and where they are now, because I think that'd be fun. Fun exercise. Yeah. Out of difficult circumstances come some really amazing brands and products. That's a good story. Kind of all you can hope for. Yes. Yes. If you could make it in New York City, you can make it anywhere. If you could make it during COVID, clearly you can make it anywhere. All right. I can see that there's a stack of papers in front of Melissa Traverse, and it's because she is still enamored with so many of the brands and founders that she met at Expo West. And here they are highlighted in all their glory in price sheets and in info sheets here. I don't even know where to start. I just have piles and piles of products and papers. I'll just start with what's right in front of me. And we actually referenced this a little bit in our previous expo show when we recorded right from the show. But this is something that I am really interested in, especially now. So this trend of farmer run brands, so brands that are you know, farmers and they're kind of tracking their products and the ingredients that make up their product right from the farm. So I have a, you know, a sheet from Folkland here. They make the seed oil free USDA organic. Absolutely delicious. fries and tater tots. They were so tasty. Farmwell, which you talked about at the show. Painterland Sisters, of course, is part of this. One Degree Organics has been around for a while, but they're also kind of part of this category. And, you know, it got me thinking about the link between this sort of category and regenerative and being able to trace the ingredients in your food back to where it came from. I don't know, that's certainly on my mind and knowing that I can trace the ingredients in my food back to the farm is certainly more important to me and I'm thinking more about organics than I was before. That's a really good point. You know, we can hear all these buzzwords and you can see all these certifications up and down the street. But if you trust that a CPG brand is sourcing their ingredients from their own supply chain, literally from their own farms, I feel like that is a better indication of food quality and ingredient quality than anything that you could see on a certification label. Yeah, it's certainly, I think, important to a lot of consumers out there and it certainly doesn't hurt that these products are absolutely delicious.
[00:24:59] Melissa Traverse: It's also interesting that it's like reverse vertical integration of sorts of like a lot of times you have brands that just go deeper in their supply chain and this is like the supply chain building brands, right? And I'm sure for farmers of any kind who can successfully produce CPG products, I would think they have a pretty nice margin advantage there.
[00:25:21] John Craven: And hopefully, hopefully they're making more money than just selling, I don't know, potatoes or whatever.
[00:25:25] Ray Latif: Exactly. And supply chain control, especially with tariffs and freight. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not just on the food side as well. I met a brand or I was introduced to a brand called Moozy, M-O-O-Z-Y, which is a maker of, as they describe it, premium farm fresh milk. It's canned milk in 12 ounce slim cans. Yeah, I saw that. Yeah, they market A2A2 milk. It has 13 grams of protein. They have a couple of really interesting varieties, including a horchata milk that I tried. And the founder is a, I don't know what, the founder's a cow, is a, I don't know what generation of farmer he is, but he's been dairy farming, I believe in New England for some time. And this is exactly what you guys were talking about. Really delicious product. And again, one where I feel like I can trust the ingredients, trust the source, because I know I met the farmer. Another example is singing pastures. They do the pastured meat sticks that are also absolutely delicious. They were at the Naturally New England Pitch Slam. They won it. They won the one. Yeah. Yeah. They won it. And yeah, just another example of being able to do more with the, you know, the ingredients that you are already farming. For sure. All right, while Melissa's sorting through her papers here, John has two cans of products in front of him. What is this? This is a new brand called Espo.
[00:26:48] Melissa Traverse: They actually have four different flavors, but it's espresso soda. That is, I would say loosely marketed as kind of like an energy drink alternative. It's got 120 milligrams of caffeine per 12 ounce slim can only 45 calories. This is one of those, like what's old is new again, coffee soda, super tasty kind of, uh, I don't know. I grew up drinking this stuff called Manhattan special, which probably had a lot of caffeine and definitely a crap load of sugar.
[00:27:18] Ray Latif: This is like a nice sort of adult modern take on it. Pretty good stuff. 12 ounce slim cans, 45 calories per can, 120 milligrams of caffeine. The two varieties are zesty lemon and wild cherry. Yeah, there's a vanilla and I'm forgetting what the fourth one is, but I don't know, lemon works pretty well. Always, always. Citrus and coffee, usually a good combo. I know, I felt like that's of the flavors, felt like the original flavor, if you will. There's a brand at Expo, I don't know if either of you saw them, Espritzio? No. And that was a combination of espresso, I tried the blood orange, I think they were all citrus, I'm not sure, and club soda. Super tasty, low sugar, same idea.
[00:28:01] Melissa Traverse: When is St. Patrick's Day?
[00:28:03] Ray Latif: The 17th?
[00:28:04] Melissa Traverse: So another week. Yeah. Anyway.
[00:28:06] Ray Latif: Yes. It's Tuesday the 17th.
[00:28:07] Melissa Traverse: So our dear friends at Athletic Brewing just launched this Emerald Cliffs, a non-alcoholic dry Irish stout.
[00:28:17] John Craven: I don't know what glass to pour this in. I tried it yesterday. It's got a nice little cascade to it, but it's, um, Well, you know, you pour these things. I know, of course you do.
[00:28:27] Ray Latif: So this is their Guinness type product, which of course you pour into a glass. Yes, it's really solid. I opened it. I guess I'll have to drink this now, but I had one yesterday. It was quite delicious. You said that already. I'm going to have another one today, Ray. How about right now? There you go. We're out of the can. Oh, my gosh. Good stuff. Good stuff. I was going to say, Bill Shufelt is rolling around in his grave right now. He's alive and kicking.
[00:28:51] SPEAKER_??: Bill's a good man.
[00:28:52] Melissa Traverse: Well, yeah, and it's nitro obviously, but you know, I kind of like this as a I mean It's like an obvious move for athletic to try to do this. Yeah, and it feels like one of the more I Don't know substantial kind of new entries from them.
[00:29:06] Ray Latif: Yeah, I mean it's it's Hope it works out, it's really good. A natural evolution, I think five years ago, they probably would have had a really hard time introducing that to the market because A, NA beers were not what they are right now in terms of demand, and B, it probably took a long time to get that right. I would imagine. But well done. Thank you, Athletic Brewing. Thank you, Athletic Brewing. Maybe I'll get a can if there's still one more upstairs. There are. All right. Oh, wow. You've got some really cool products in front of you. Look at that, Melissa. These just came out of nowhere. I've sorted the piles. All right. So. one thing I have in front of me here is Basicase, B-A-S-I-C-A-S-E. So this isn't a food or a beverage. It is a probiotic single-use mouthwash. I actually met these folks at the Startup CPG's Gelson's grocery run. This is something that I thought was really interesting and not something that I see a lot of. So they're single-use mouthwashes. You should try one of these. You're a big... Are you trying to tell You're a big oral heli. You should have one of these. But I thought the use of probiotics in mouthwash was interesting. We see probiotics everywhere, but you know, I don't know that I've seen them in mouthwash yet. The idea here is that instead of completely eliminating all the bacteria in your mouth, you're pollinating it with good bacteria and crowding out the bad bacteria. So that was something that I thought was really interesting and it does certainly have a nice freshening effect. I also have in front of me Pecora's instant bone broth. So I have the beef bone broth and chicken bone broth. These are single serves right here. And these were really tasty. The one that I was most interested in though was actually the instant cocoa bone broth. They were sampling it at the grocery run as well and it tasted really just like hot cocoa. And I thought it would be such a nice thing to have like at night, maybe instead of dessert, that kind of thing. And I'm kind of curious to know whether consumers would be more interested in it positioned as a hot cocoa bone broth or as a high protein hot cocoa. So that certainly remains to be seen. But the brand is PIKORA, P-I-K-O-R-A. And I also have, you know, on the topic of collagen, I also have Power Up's product here. They initially launched with their cocoa mix. And at Expo West, they launched, I believe, three new SKUs. They have mint, which tastes just like a Girl Scout cookie. They have hazelnut and cinnamon. And this is a product that I think is super tasty. You can eat it like the Lick-O-Mate. Do you remember Lick-O-Mate with the chalky? Oh, yeah. You don't remember Lick-O-Mate? The name sounds a little, um, controversial. I'm just going to say that. There are so many controversial things in the eighties. You would get this, like, it was almost like a piece of white chalk. And then you would get this packet of almost like powdered Jell-O and you would dip the, the piece of chalk in the Jell-O and eat it like that. I didn't know it was called Lick-O-Mate. Yeah. Well, you don't get the piece of chalk, which I think is actually a really good decision on the behalf of Power Up. And by the way, you spell Power Up P-W-R-U-P. And by the way, you spell Lickmaid L-I-K-M-A-I-D. Lickmaid. Okay. The first way I tried this was just by dumping it in my mouth. And I've tried it a few other ways too. You can make it in hot cocoa. You can cook with it, but I do really like just eating it as a powder. I don't know why, but I love it. And it's high protein, 10 grams of protein, seven grams of sugar. It has electrolytes. So this is certainly a recovery product or even a pre-workout product. If Mike weren't skiing right now, if he were here in the studio, he would be stealing every one of those from you. We have to fight for it. Yeah, he loves those folks. Big fan. We spent a lot of time at their booth. Yeah, yeah, they're great.
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[00:34:16] Ray Latif: Alright, let's dive into our featured interviews for this episode. As I mentioned at the top of the show, we're revisiting three insightful conversations from Taste Radio's Miami Meetup, held on February 18th. We kick things off with Spencer Slane, a founding member of the Angel Group, who explains how the Early Stage Investment Network helps early-stage CPG brands bridge the funding gap with both capital and operator expertise. He's followed by Little Saints founder and CEO Megan Klein, who shares how her functional non-alcoholic cocktail brand was born out of a personal shift toward moderation and has become an anchor in the fast-growing adult non-alcoholic beverage category. Rounding out the discussion is AB InBev's Conrad Barrett, who talks about Perfect Draft, countertop system designed to bring bar-quality draft beer into the home, highlighting how consumer feedback and AI-driven insights are shaping its growth. So once again, my name is Ray Lateef, the editor, post, and producer of BebNest Taste Radio Podcast. Thank you all so much for coming here to Miami. It is an honor to join all of these amazing folks, these founders and operators who are creating the next generation of food and beverage brands in the United States and beyond. This is our first Taste Radio Meetup of the year, but we have six more coming out in 2026, including in New York, Austin, Chicago, San Francisco, San Diego, and London. And if you're interested in attending any of those events or if you'll be in any of those cities, we highly recommend you RSVP. You can do so at Taste Radio.com slash meetups. Also, I want to put June on your radar. June in New York more specifically, that's when we're hosting BevNET Live. It's kind of like this event except it's bigger and packed with even more founders and operators and investors. If you're serious about growing your brand, that is the beverage brand, it's an event you should absolutely be at. You can learn more at BevNET.com slash events. I mentioned we have an incredible person on the mics tonight, and we have three of them actually, but Spencer Slane is our first guest. Spencer is a founding member of a network called the Angel Group. And if you tune into Taste Radio and listen to Taste Radio on a regular basis, you'll know a little bit about the network because I just spoke with his partner, Adam Spriggs, for an episode that we published yesterday. It seems like it was very well received. Did you have a chance to listen to that one?
[00:36:51] Melissa Traverse: Last night, actually. So, right in time.
[00:36:54] Ray Latif: Well, last night's good. I'm glad that you did your homework before we sat down on the mics tonight. You know, I love speaking with Adam, and I love the context of the conversation, because it included brands that everyone knows and loves, and, you know, brands that the Angel Group has invested in. But let's back up for a second. You know, what is the Angel Group? And tell us a bit about its origins and your background within the organization.
[00:37:18] Melissa Traverse: So it started back in 2019. It was maybe 10, 12 people to start, and it was when Adam Spriggs, who you just had on, he moved from Boulder back home to Ohio. He wanted to stay in touch with his friends and professionals in CPG. And then we actually, Adam and myself, we met on an investor call for Loverboy. And from there, we formed a connection. I joined. I started bringing in people with experience in liquidity. And fast forward five years, we now have almost 300 members, mostly full-time operators or professionals in CPG.
[00:37:55] Ray Latif: So obviously when you form a company, typically at least, you're trying to solve a problem. You're trying to fill a void or a gap that has been there and hasn't been filled since. What gap did the Angel Group fill for CPG?
[00:38:10] Melissa Traverse: So I think early CPG is messy, right? Sometimes when companies are too big for friends and family, from a fundraising standpoint, or too small for institutional capital, that's where the angel group filled kind of a nice gap where we would come in. We didn't need a ton of velocity data or information beyond getting to know the vertical and category as well as the founders. And then we were able to provide assistance as opposed to just writing a check. So because everyone in the group, except for maybe me, has previous full-time CBG experience or current, they're really experts in whatever they're doing. And if there's an issue in distribution or sales, branding, packaging, there's someone in the group who can help.
[00:38:54] Ray Latif: And they have helped. You have helped. Because some of the brands that have exited are some of the most well-known brands in modern CPG. Again, Poppy, Siete, most recently Batchans. How much did Batchans sell for? 400 million. So Poppy sold for technically 1.65 billion.
[00:39:15] Melissa Traverse: 1.95. 1.95.
[00:39:16] Ray Latif: There were some tax savings and Siete sold for a billion dollars.
[00:39:19] Melissa Traverse: Yes.
[00:39:20] Ray Latif: I think your track record kind of speaks for itself. But when you're first meeting these folks, what is it that they need? How do you identify someone that needs help and you can give them that help more than just in the form of money?
[00:39:36] Melissa Traverse: Poppy was interesting because it was kind of the opposite where we had to audition to be investors. And I had cold called Steven maybe 10 or 15 times till he finally took my call. But luckily it was because of the group that we had allocation because one of the members, Mark Gallo, worked for NorCal Beverage. Poppy, even early on, was looking to them as a potential partner. So in that way, Poppy showed interest because of the distribution network that we had access to. But with other brands, especially ones that don't have the backing and expertise of a Kavu, you know, we've helped them in various ways, whether it's literally allocation and retail or completely rebranding and changing their entire branding the way Kavu did with Mother to Poppy.
[00:40:21] Ray Latif: You know, I asked that question because there's a lot of folks in this audience and a lot of people are going to be listening to this on the podcast who will probably give you a call and say, Spencer, you know, I'd love for you to look at my brand. I'd love for you to invest in my brand. And you need to evaluate. your interests and I guess the general potential for this brand to have a great exit. What do you look for specifically in early stage brands? I think defendable moats, number one. Number two. You say defendable moats. Let's get into that for a sec. What does that mean?
[00:40:52] Melissa Traverse: Well, there has to be asterisks of it that are proprietary or that cannot be replicated easily, but also to have that within a vertical that has a very large addressable potential market. And with that, a scalable gross margin that can be supported. So as they grow, you can see that there's a clear route to profitability. The founder is super important, someone that's self-aware. and maybe open to feedback, but also confident and has a clear thesis in what they're doing. And then I think it's intuitive to everyone here, but I mean, I just like looking at brands that have habitual, ideally daily use cases, but it maybe is tapping into some nostalgia or some kind of space with antiquated or incumbents that are not innovating or thinking forward. They're just kind of sitting back and enjoying what they've enjoyed for the last 10, 15, 20, 30 years.
[00:41:46] Ray Latif: You know, before we hopped in the mics, you and I were chatting over here about Goodall's, which is the brand that you're invested in. And the idea of Goodall's seems pretty intuitive, right? I mean, you don't really need to think about what it is. It's macaroni and cheese. I mean, and it's a macaroni and cheese brand that's a little bit better than traditional existing brands out there. I almost feel like, and we talked about this again, that's kind of their secret sauce.
[00:42:10] Melissa Traverse: With Goodle, yeah, it's better for you, maybe better bad. Depends how you look at it. But in a lot of ways, it's similar to what Annie's did. The co-founder is also involved in Goodle's. But what they did was they approached the marketing in a much more vibrant, more creative way, looking at their SKUs. They're going after flavor profiles that weren't being previously looked at. And really, the founder, Jen, her personality kind of is represented through the brand. And then fast forward, Gal Gadot becomes the partner that created a surge of sales. But there's a difference between the virality of a brand and the loyalty of a brand. So the product test always come first because if people you know, look at like a prime, not to cast any negatives, but, you know, people have to try the product and also like the product and continue to get it. And you're going to see surges and the virality I spoke of, but you want long-term brand awareness, use, and you want to have a real community that's long-term.
[00:43:15] Ray Latif: How much does hype, initial hype that is, feed into potential for a larger community? You know, that tribe that everyone talks about. Does hype help create that or is that sort of a fleeting thing?
[00:43:28] Melissa Traverse: Yeah, hype can kind of supercharge it and get it going, but it's not what's going to foster it and support it on a long-term basis. But it's definitely something that can help in the early innings.
[00:43:40] Ray Latif: Where does good hype come from? Is it from the founder? Is it from a particular brand design or label design? What, in your experience, has created the most authentic hype for CPG?
[00:43:51] Melissa Traverse: It's usually the founder. I mean, you look at their passion, their commitment. You know, a lot of times when you're looking at pre-revenue, pre-seed opportunities, it's very likely the product's going to change, the packaging's going to be way different, but the founder is what remains that constant source of inspiration, creativity, and motivation, especially when things are tough for the first several years.
[00:44:15] Ray Latif: Well, I'm glad you said that because we have a founder that's coming up shortly who I think represents all the things that you just mentioned. You know, there's a bunch of samples here on the tables. I'm sure you could critique any one of them. Just in general terms, what do you see as particular red flags when it comes to early stage brands, ones that give you pause about a potential investment?
[00:44:36] Melissa Traverse: I think valuations are usually telling. So overinflated valuations like we saw in 21 and 22, those are starting to come back a little bit when I thought the rational discipline would be in place for a little bit longer. So, you know, we're always looking usually sub 10 million when it's super early on. And other red flags, I mean, The founders can be the best and worst parts of a scenario. It all comes back to the humility, self-awareness and willingness to be open to change. So red flags can come up pretty quickly, but I would say usually it's that also when brands, you know, want to push maybe too much too soon, they don't have any velocity data. They've done no kind of proof of concept. and yet they want to raise $5 million and have all these ambitions. It's about going in a slower, more methodical way, and instead of trying to rush towards an exit, or rush to be something maybe you're meant to be, but not tomorrow.
[00:45:35] Ray Latif: I didn't ask this because I think it would seem to be intuitive when it comes to agile investing, but how much money are you talking about? Each member of the network has an opportunity to invest in a particular brand or concept, but at what numbers are we talking about?
[00:45:50] Melissa Traverse: So there's so many different ways the Angel Group does investing. There's SPVs, and usually those are lower than industry standards. So instead of a 2 in 20, it's like a 0 in 10. So we do SPVs, usually when the checks are much smaller. But I'd say the average check size when we're doing our own individual contributions is like $25,000. But they go as low as $15,000. But separately of that, Adam and Chris have also started a fund. So they raised $25 million on that.
[00:46:16] Ray Latif: Supernatural Ventures.
[00:46:17] Melissa Traverse: Supernatural Ventures. So with the Angel Group, you've got a fund side. You've got the membership, which is opt-in. You pay a membership fee, but basically you're deciding when and if you want to invest in any brand that pitches. And then you've got SPVs as well, where you can leverage a little bit of risk by writing a smaller check but with a larger vehicle so we can get on the cap table.
[00:46:39] Ray Latif: The most important question of this conversation, what's the best way to approach you? If you're a founder or an operator and you're looking to raise some money and they want to talk to you, what gets you interested?
[00:46:51] Melissa Traverse: Anything. I mean, I've taken calls through Instagram, email. I mean, email usually is the way. But in the same way I called Stephen at Poppy, I mean, people just call me up and we go from there. I mean, with some of the recent exits, the inbounds to the Angel Group have kind of spiked. But mostly it's kind of just word of mouth and referrals from other members.
[00:47:14] Ray Latif: What's the difference between annoying and persistent? I don't know. So if you are persistent, you're probably a little annoying.
[00:47:22] Melissa Traverse: Nothing takes the place of persistence. That's my motto with anything.
[00:47:26] Ray Latif: Well, that's a good motto to have because to be in this business and to succeed in CPG, you have to be persistent. You have to be tough. You have to be all the things that everyone's ever talked about. And I'm just delighted that you're able to help some of these brands get to that place where their dreams really do come true. Spencer, thank you so much for joining us tonight. Really, really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Spencer Slain. If you haven't had a chance to introduce yourself, share your business card with him, please do, because he's definitely someone you should know. All right, let's bring up our next guest. I mentioned her. Her name is Megan Klein. She is the founder and CEO of Little Saints. Megan Klein, round of applause. Thank you. I'm so happy to be back here with you. One time in Newton. I didn't wear my Reishi crown tonight, I'm sorry. Reishi mushroom, for those of you who don't know. Megan and I sat down for a conversation at her home office in Boston, and yeah, she was wearing a very unique outfit, I'll just say that. What is Little Saints? Little Saints is a trailblazing brand of non-alcoholic cocktails and spirits. What makes us unique is that we are zero sugar, very cocktail forward, and powered by functional mushrooms like lion's mane and reishi. So I think everyone knows here that non-alcoholic beverages are definitely, or at least non-alcoholic adult beverages are definitely on the rise. Seems like everyone is interested in this space. But what interested you initially in getting into non-alcoholic cocktails? my own drinking habits. During COVID, I was single and living alone in Detroit. And I am 47 and I am a person that grew up like drinking cocktails, you know, like my entire adult life, I had a couple cocktails a couple nights a week, my whole life. And during COVID, I started doing that by myself. And I was like, okay, I don't want to give up drinking alcohol, but like doing this every night is really making me feel terrible. So it was really to solve my own problem. And before Little Saints, I had started a salad dressing, dip and juice brand. So I had made things before. And so I did dry January 2021 for the first time. I bought everything out there. Lots of great non-alcoholic brands that are still there today, but everything was full of sugar. and nothing had like a really good functional ingredient, like specifically a functional mushroom. And nothing was like really cocktail forward. Like if like sparkling water is here and alcohol is here, everything kind of was like on the sparkling water side. So I was like, I can actually be additive to this category. So I feel like the brand really lives at the intersection of functionality and refreshment, like a lot of brands these days do. You know, lifestyle is another big important part of the brand. How do you define the path going forward when you do have all those three things happening all at the same time? Again, you're a functional brand, you're a refreshment or sort of a social beverage brand, you're a lifestyle brand. How do you navigate all three parts of the business as Little Saints itself? I mean, we always lead with cocktail culture because we are not, you know, people are like, why don't you make an energy drink? It's like, no, this is like the very specific use case occasion is for when you would be drinking alcohol. So at the beach, at the pool, like at nighttime. So we like lead with cocktail culture. And then, you know, for people that like drinking, like we want like our drinks to like do something for us. know that our customers, people that are going to reach for Little Saints, they don't just want a sugar mocktail or something. They want something functional in it. So that's kind of the hierarchy of our messaging. It's like cocktail first, functional second. The majority of Little Saints customers, vast majority, 90%, still drink alcohol. So they're not being sober or completely replacing it. So if they're going to drink, they usually save their alcohol for good alcohol. And then if they're going to drink a non-alcohol, it's got to be good. It's got to do something, and then it's got to not add to their sugar. I think what you just described is optionality, right? And so having a brand that can reach a lot of different people at a lot of different use cases and occasions feels like the essence of what you do. You don't necessarily have to be living a sober lifestyle. No, definitely not. You definitely don't have to be living like a crunchy granola natural lifestyle. No. You just have to meet people where they are at this point. And I think where most people are is in moderation, right? People are trying to moderate what they drink, you know, how much sugar they eat, what they consume in terms of functional ingredients. Again, when you're marketing the brand and you're talking to people on social media or beyond, what's resonating most? I would think it's moderation. Yeah, no, exactly. I love that you brought that up because we have done surveys of our customers. We have a very large email list because, sorry, you're all going to get our Instagram ads after this event. We have like 120,000 people on our email list, and we have put out surveys after each of the last two dry Januarys, after 2025 and after 2026, and we found really interesting data. In 2025, abstinence was kind of the thing. Like, the biggest group of people responding to the survey had, like, not had alcohol for more than 21 days. So they were, like, the biggest group had, like, abstained. And in 2026, it was all about moderation. The biggest group of responders said that they did parts of Dry January, but they didn't count. It was sort of like that feeling of it has to be all or nothing. It just feels like it's really kind of going out of favor with everyone. I mean, just talking to my friends in like the New Year, New Year and like wellness companies, it's more like people are really going towards moderation. And we've always spoken like this. This, by the way, I'm a little nervous to have you try it because it's a little maybe watery, but we're launching a margarita. on Sunday on National Margarita Day. And this is a good example. All Little Saints canned cocktails and spirits are like definitely modeled after alcohol. So it's not like we're not doing like a blueberry elderflower spritz. Like this is a margarita. So you know what the use case is. It definitely feels like something that I could replace an evening margarita with, a traditional margarita with, which is awesome. I feel like that's always been one of the biggest impediments to non-alcoholic adult beverages is that they just don't taste or live up to the expectations that you already have. But, I mean, I think that is the crux of building a modern CPG business, you know, is trying to create something that's better than what currently exists or that has existed in the past. It's difficult. And this business is really, really challenging. You know, let's create some solidarity here. You know, when you started out, I'm sure you faced a lot of different challenges as an entrepreneur. Did those challenges get more difficult? Do you feel like, you know, you had a more difficult time at the outset of launching your brand or with its growth, are you finding that it's even more of a challenge building, scaling a CPG business? You know, I've almost built two businesses with our team. You know, we have our direct-to-consumer business, and then we have our wholesale business. And so direct-to-consumer, because we were advertising more than the other brands, it was like, you know, like a rocket ship, especially around Shark Tank time. Even then, we were having a really hard time with wholesale. Little Saints, you know, because we're very alcohol forward, we generally need pre-tier alcohol distributors, like in Florida, Breakthrough or Southern. And I, to Spencer's point of just cold calling and being persistent, I mean, I stalked Breakthrough and Southern for three years before they took us in Florida. And it's really hard to get any volume. Isn't stalking against the law? three years, Megan? Not for three years.
[00:54:53] Melissa Traverse: Wow.
[00:54:53] Ray Latif: Not like in their driveway, stalking, but definitely, you know, maybe like show up an event, like I'm going to get in front of you, like, but we ended up finally getting the business. So what got them to yes? What made them say yes? I think a couple things, like number one, we were persistent. Like a lot of brands reach out to them. Number two, we had feet on the street already. A lot of brands will go to these big alcohol distributors and be like, yeah, I'm going to have support, but they don't really believe you. So we already had feet on the street here. And then number three, I think like our data, you know, the only data we really have is our sprouts data and we do really well there. And then just them looking at the trends too, like they know that they need to bolster up their non-alcoholic portfolio because they're just losing sales to like water. I'm sure distributors also love it. Investors love it when your velocity numbers are great. How do you get people to buy your product, not just for trial? How do you get them to buy it, to love it, to talk about the brand with other people? What's been most effective in that way? I mean, I think we at Hunter's here, she does a great job like managing our community. We're like very community centric. We give out surveys, we do events, we're like constantly responding to people and we have a lot of personality in our marketing. I think that's the really thing that we've done uniquely in Non-Al. Like the emails come from me, Kara writes emails, like we feel to people that they know us because they do. It's like a real team doing the marketing. It's not a celebrity, it's like not something untouchable. And so that's a lot of the feedback we get on a lot of the surveys. Like I really like what you guys are doing. I feel like I can see myself in you and kind of to what we were talking about before of like we're not a sober brand. We're like constantly like giving cocktail recipes, talking about how everyone else on our team drinks alcohol but me. It's like they can really see themselves in us and so I think that's been helpful. I mean, it's exactly what Spencer was talking about earlier. The founder is the face, the enthusiasm, the charisma behind some of these early stage brands. And the connection, the authentic connection, is real. Did you have a hard time putting yourself out there? No, I love it. It's fun. Well, just as a piece of advice for folks who may be a little wary, what's your advice in terms of getting out there and being that face of your own brand? I mean, well, obviously you have to love it. And then I just gave up caring. I don't care if I look good. I don't care if I sound good. It's just people want authenticity. And I feel awkward when we try to do stage things. So I think people really want to see the build. They love entrepreneur stories. They love to be able to see themselves in you. So just get out there, whatever it is. Absolutely. That's great advice. Megan, you're the best. Thank you so much for taking the time. Congratulations on everything you've built with a little saint.
[00:57:34] Melissa Traverse: Really amazing. Thank you. Thank you.
[00:57:36] Ray Latif: Well done. And if you have a moment, whenever the margarita comes out, I highly recommend you get some. All right. Our last guest of the evening. He's not really a guest. He's kind of a legend. His name is Conrad Barrett. He is the director of Perfect Draft for AB InBev. Round of applause for Conrad. Thank you. Thank you.
[00:57:56] John Craven: Should we get a beer?
[00:57:58] Ray Latif: we should definitely get a beer. And while we're getting a beer, I mean, look at this system, a perfect draft. What is this? Well, I'll explain it. Okay. I'm going to attempt to explain this. And this is really important because if the consumer can't explain what you're doing to somebody else in 10 seconds, you might have a little bit of a problem because word of mouth marketing, so critical. So if I'm going to say, oh, okay, well, this looks like a device or machine where I can get bar quality drafts. in a single pour, cheers, using a countertop device at home. Is that essentially what it is?
[00:58:33] John Craven: Yeah, exactly. So Perfect Draft is bar quality draft beer experiences at home. So it sits on your countertop, has a six liter keg inside of it. The machine can cool it down to 32 degrees or your preferred temperature. We often recommend Stella at 37. But yeah, it should be simple, easy, easy to understand, no friction, no fuss. If you think about a kegerator, you have beer lines, CO2, none of that exists with Perfect Draft. We tried to take all of the friction out of it when we were designing it.
[00:59:02] Ray Latif: I'm going to ask a controversial question because people think that beverage alcohol is having a problem, and it is in some ways. A lot of people are drinking less. But I think sometimes opportunity is greatest in categories that seem to be on a decline or categories where innovation hasn't necessarily taken place. When I think about a perfect draft, I think, OK, wow, this is the kind of innovation that you need to consider. when you are facing what is potentially a decline in at-home consumption of beer. How do you evaluate the opportunity when, again, all signs are pointing to, you know, a rocky road, at least in the short term, for beverage alcohol and beer in particular?
[00:59:44] John Craven: Yeah, I think number one is unlocking the best experience. So for us, it's all about premiumization, and it's all about having that moment at home with family and friends and really bringing the emotion back into drinking. Our core thesis is all around in home with family and friends experiencing draft beer. You know, I lived in Europe for four years and the draft culture there is incredible. I think we have a lot of work to do on draft culture here. So thank you all for being here as well. Casa La Ruby is a part of our family, but that's like the biggest thing for us is like, how do we bring that emotion and that experience back to beer and bring it home?
[01:00:23] Ray Latif: I love that because you want someone to feel something about your brand. It can't just be about one thing or the other. It can't just be about taste or ingredients or label design. It has to be that whole package. And it's difficult though.
[01:00:36] John Craven: It's difficult to get people to care. Hardware. Hard is in the name. It is very, very hard. But the good thing that you get out of hardware is the touch and feel, the repetitiveness, and it becomes a part of your home. When we talk to our consumers, and that's one thing that we do every single day, we're talking to our consumers. When we were starting up, we were delivering the machine. We were installing the machine for consumers. We were learning where they were putting it in their home. And we still talk to those consumers today. And they talk about it as if it's an extension of their house. It's an extension of, quite frankly, their family. It's the reason why people come to their house versus them going somewhere else.
[01:01:17] Ray Latif: So it all starts, however, with premium. It all starts with quality. You can't come to market with something that is low quality, that is subpar, that isn't replicating the experience that you guys talk about with Perfect Draft. Bar quality, draft of beer at home. Before you launched this brand, what kind of work did you put in to make sure you were going to deliver that experience, deliver what you're marketing and talking about?
[01:01:41] John Craven: Well, we had it a little bit easy because we've been building this business in Europe for 14 years, and so I spent four years building that business. We took it, you know, 10x. We're in over 500,000 households in Europe now, so it's an incredible business. So we learned the mistakes early, and we were able to rectify that before we came to the U.S. What were some of those mistakes that you made? Oh, it's everything from not delivering that core value proposition of when the beer is delivered to them, how the machine pours the beer. So this is a brand new machine that we developed about four years ago. But previous to that, one of the key learnings is consumers wanted to change the temperature of their beer. So we built it. You know, we made sure that you could set the machine now down to 32 degrees or you can go up to 42 degrees, depending on the different style you're drinking. So another thing is that We know that consumers wanted to interact with the machine when they maybe weren't home, so we have an iOS app so they can set the temperature, check on their beer, order beer. But the biggest thing is just that end experience, so really how the machine pours the beer. That was the thing that we spent the most time on, and that's what was really redeveloped with this machine was that pouring experience.
[01:02:51] Ray Latif: I think, again, you know, optionality is a really big part of building a successful CPG brand. You want to give people a reason to consume your product, but at different day parts, at different use occasions, and so on and so forth. So you're not necessarily saying, okay, well, you can only use this or you can only drink craft beer at home. Obviously, you're going to go to the bar. Of course, you're going to drink beer out of a can or pour it into a glass. But giving people an option seems to be one of the keys to a perfect draft success. Broadly speaking, how do you identify the next value proposition for people who are just getting into or just learning about this machine? Is there another value that you can unlock for people? Because again, you don't necessarily need to have this at home, but it's an amazing thing to have at home.
[01:03:41] John Craven: It's a basic answer, but it's the core to everything. Talk to your consumers. Let them tell you exactly what they want, and you build it. That's the main thing. The main thesis around our business is talking to consumers, learning as much as possible, and trying to deliver on exactly what they want. When we see something that hits, we double down on it. And that's one of the values about being a part of Anheuser-Busch is we operate as a startup within Anheuser-Busch, but we have the scale to double down when things go right.
[01:04:12] Ray Latif: It's so interesting, right? You're building a startup within a very large beverage company, but, you know, with all the resources that you might have, I would wonder sometimes if you kind of get tripped up on your own two feet sometimes because you have certain rules and regulations that you have to follow no matter what. But, you know, operating as a startup, what do you see as some of the things that are most opportunistic? How do you identify ways that you can be nimble even within a big organization?
[01:04:41] John Craven: I have a little bit of the luxury of being at AB for 10 years now. And so I know the system very well. And I know where I can operate freely and where I need to engage with the business. And I think that knowledge has really helped us grow because for the first year, we were super siloed. We were operating on an island. very small, very contained, but we were just proving that we had product market fit. And then once we were able to prove that, then we started really engaging with the business and saying, you know, working with our Florida team, working with our whole region to understand, okay, how do we really grow this? So number one was you need to act as a startup no matter where you are. You need to be fast. You need to have fast feedback loops. Again, I'm going to repeat myself, you need to talk to every consumer you can. And then the value really of unlocking at A.B. is, you know, when I need a marketing budget and I have the data, I have the money. You know what I'm saying? I have to prove the data. A.B. is very, very meticulous. And so they want the numbers, they want the data. We are extremely smart with how we operate. But once you have the data, they will unlock the cash.
[01:05:57] Ray Latif: One term that I think everyone's heard of and is overly used these days is AI. And sometimes you don't need a humongous marketing budget if you use AI effectively. How do you use AI to build your business or to support the growth of your business?
[01:06:13] John Craven: Every single facet of our business touches AI now. We are a very small team within a very large company, but it is literally myself and Martine who's over there behind us. And the two of us operate this business with our AB partners, but we use AI again in every facet. So from a direct-to-consumer experience, We have all of our personalization, email recommendations, all of the consumer touch points are going through an AI funnel to understand what does the consumer want. But more importantly, like really where we're getting the gains, because that's kind of table stakes now is the consumer side, is on the operations. And so all of our marketing, so when we think about What are we putting in front of consumers from a marketing video all of that is getting analyzed by AI? It's telling us where the hooks are where the consumers are engaging where consumers are dropping off so every video is run through AI and it's then we're looking crossing it with our Facebook data and to say, OK, where were people dropping? Where should we bring that hook? Should we move that hook? Should we bring it up? Should we change the hook? I always joke that we hired our first AI employee. And so we have Draper. Draper is our marketing executive. And he basically runs a lot of our marketing operations, works with our contractors, and kind of operates everything that allows me and Martine to be deeper in the business. And again, talking to our consumers, being where it matters most, learning, and trying to, again, show the value to our greater organization, AB, as well.
[01:07:43] Ray Latif: You know, I'm really happy that we had this conversation for two reasons. One, clearly you are very knowledgeable, 10 years of experience in a big corporation, yet you talk like an entrepreneur, which is amazing. So if you have an opportunity to meet Conrad, I think you should pick his brain because he definitely knows what he's talking about. And two, I get to try some of the best draft beer I've had in a long time. This is a really amazing machine. If you haven't had a chance to try a beer from the Perfect Draft System, please do, right? You can do so?
[01:08:08] John Craven: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Martin will be sharing some. You guys can pour your own. We're available in Florida, so you can find us at perfectdraft.com. If you want a machine, come talk to us. If you want to try the beer, come talk to us. It is the best beer experience you can have at home.
[01:08:24] Ray Latif: Outstanding. Round of applause for Conrad Barrett. Thank you so much. All right, we've wrapped up the interview part of our event tonight. Thank you all so much for coming. And once again, thanks to our incredible sponsors, Vibrant Ingredients, Matriarch Wealth Management, Atomos Strategic Marketing. Definitely talk to those folks back there. Of course, Casa La Rubia and Belay Solutions. We'll be in New York City in mid-April. Stay tuned, Taste Radio.com slash meetups. Once again, thank you all so much for coming tonight. Really appreciate it. That brings us to the end of this episode of Taste Radio. Thank you so much for listening. Taste Radio is a production of BevNET.com Incorporated. Our audio engineer for Taste Radio is Joe Cracci. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt, and our video editor is Ryan Galang. Our social marketing manager is Amanda Smerlinski, and our designer is Amanda Huang. Just a reminder, if you like what you hear on Taste Radio, please share the podcast with friends and colleagues. And of course, we would love it if you could review us on the Apple Podcasts app or your listening platform of choice. Check us out on Instagram. Our handle is bevnettasteradio. As always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please send us an email to ask at Taste Radio.com. On behalf of the entire Taste Radio team, thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time. you
