[00:00:09] Ray Latif: Hello and thanks for tuning into Taste Radio, the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food or beverage. I'm Ray Latif, the editor and producer of Taste Radio, and with my co-hosts, Melissa Traverse and Mike Schneider. In this episode, we recap standout moments from BevNET Live NYC 2026, discuss Do It's rapid rise in hydration powders, highlight the launch of functional cookie brand Fields Good, and explore the opportunities and challenges of marketing beverages to kids and families. Know John Craven. He's in Copenhagen right now, which is, I'm definitely jealous. I was going to say that's like your second home. I wish it were my second home.
[00:00:56] Melissa Traverse: So much black licorice. I am so jealous.
[00:01:02] Ray Latif: Wow. I'm not jealous of that. I don't know how he made it out there. This is one of the first times in a long time where I've come back from an event like BevNET Live, and I've pretty run down. I needed about three days to recover, but what an event. It was worth every sniffle. I know we talked about this in our last episode, but just to reiterate, thank you all so much for coming out to the event. Just amazing from beginning to end. So great to see people in real life and just talk to them about their businesses, how they're creating next gen brands for the beverage industry and beyond. And. helping them to connect with people who are at the event and those who are offline as well. It was just great to speak to founders who said, okay, here's where we are at our stage of business, and here's what we need help with. And just the ability to turn around and connect those folks to people who are literally behind you, whether it be a supplier or a retail buyer, whether it be a distributor, an investor. And so, you know, BevNET Live, as we've always talked about, is really about the connections that happen at the event.
[00:02:08] Melissa Traverse: Our number one goal for BevNET Live is always to make it inspiring and energizing and productive for all of the people who come to the event. But it really is all of those things for us as well. I always leave BevNET Live feeling even more excited about everything that we're doing and more energizing. I spoke to a number of people who have been introduced to non-bass through Taste Radios. I've joined all of you, which is always so exciting. And I hope everyone had an amazing time, as great as I did.
[00:02:41] Mike Schneider: I'm right there with you. And it's so great to connect with people and have just, I know some of these moments that we have are a little bit surreal. Like Miguel Gonzalez from 24-7 Packaging walks up to me and he's like, It's so weird to see your face there when I'm used to just hearing your voice. And then we had this great conversation. He's a huge fan of Taste Radio. And Miguel, thanks so much for listening. It was great to connect with you, IRL, again. He came to the Taste Radio meetup in Miami too. And it's just great to make those connections in real life. You know, sometimes we just catch up on nothing. And people love that part about BevNET Live too. And then it's, all right, what can we do for each other?
[00:03:20] Ray Latif: Yeah. I was really happy when I got to talk to listeners who have pitched the show in the past and have a deeper conversation with them or their proxies. And by proxies, I mean folks who work for the company. Someone had pitched their founder or made a pitch on behalf of their founder and I got a deeper dive into how the company is operating, what makes it special, what differentiates them in terms of route to market or packaging or supply or ingredients or anything that just really makes them stand out from the competition. And it yielded Do It's going to yield an interview on the show. So the email pitch was one thing and the email pitch was fine. But the actual experience of having a five minute conversation with someone about a particular brand really made the difference for me. And look, I'll just be really transparent about this. We get a lot of pitches for the show. I mean, I would say the over-under is usually 20 a week or so, and Obviously, we can't put every single person on the show, but it definitely helps when I have a real-life connection, a five-minute in-person conversation that helps me to remember. It just really humanizes the conversation a lot more.
[00:04:36] Mike Schneider: It's also been nice to see how we kind of splay from the Taste Radio podcast, too, and create additional opportunities, like there are ways to say yes to you if you haven't been on the show before. The easiest way is Elevator Talk or at our events when we do our on-the-spot. People really like that. I got to meet Marie-Sophie Desormeaux from that, from MICE.
[00:04:58] Ray Latif: Oh, nice. Very good pronunciation there.
[00:05:00] Mike Schneider: I hope so. And MICE is M-Y-C-E. M-Y-C-E, which is a can of beverage. And I hadn't known a lot about canna before that. I mean, obviously we talk about cava, we talk about kratom. Canna is a ingredient that it basically prolongs the serotonin that you already have, that you're already making and makes you, you know, just, it's a great Fields Good beverage.
[00:05:22] Ray Latif: K-A-N-N-A. Yeah. We met the founders of a brand called Inner Bloom, which is a maker of canna beverages at our Taste Radio San Diego meetup last September. Really interesting to speak with them as well. And I was not familiar with the ingredients and it's going to be interesting to hear about Marie-Sophie's take on the category. Her branding and her product and everything about it feels a little bit more social, but also refreshing.
[00:05:47] Mike Schneider: And advanced. Yeah. That's really nice.
[00:05:50] Ray Latif: Whereas Inner Bloom definitely felt like a brand for nightlife. It definitely felt like a brand for bars, clubs, et cetera. And I think that's what the positioning was when I spoke with the founders. Whereas Marie-Sophie, I felt like it was something, mice was something that you could almost bring to the beach.
[00:06:04] Mike Schneider: I felt the same way about that. You could bring it to the beach. I think there's also going to be some confusion about, did you say cannabis? Right. With the ingredient. So there's a lot of education that needs to happen there and mice and interbloom. I hope those two brands get a chance to meet because as we've learned over time and talked about ad nauseum at the event, category building together is a thing. And these are your friends, not your, not your enemies.
[00:06:32] Melissa Traverse: I think that's one of my favorite things about BevNET Live is watching founders and operators who are competitors in the same category meet and connect with each other. For example, I was watching Logan Milano, the founder of Amaranth, which is a product based on honey.
[00:06:48] Mike Schneider: Mad honey.
[00:06:49] Melissa Traverse: Mad honey. Right. Which was right. That's my ingredient of the week. I'll get to that.
[00:06:54] Mike Schneider: Ingredient of the week. Like Pee Wee's Playhouse?
[00:06:59] Melissa Traverse: But I was watching him chat with Sean Rosenberg, the founder of Goldie. They could sit side by side on the shelf and be competitors, but they have so much to gain by joining up and talking and, you know, bringing more attention to honey. Nixie Beverage category. Yeah, exactly. So that's, that's always one of my favorite things. The other thing I love is finally getting to meet brands and founders that you've heard so much about and you feel like you know, but you know, maybe actually haven't met in person. So I got to finally meet Anjali from Anjali's Cup. I interviewed Anjali in the live stream studio. She is such a pleasure and the product itself is so tasty. She has a chai concentrate that's very low sugar and has so much flavor. But the way that she was explaining the product and how it's based on Ayurvedic principles really put the whole thing together for me. And of course the product is delicious. So that was great.
[00:07:56] Ray Latif: I've known Anjali for about 10 years and she's just a remarkable founder. And, you know, like any founder, she's had her ups and downs with the brand and with the tariffs that came into play last year. There was a lot of press about Anjali's cup and how she was navigating the turmoil caused by the tariffs. The good news is everyone can share in that interview that you did with Anjali, Melissa, because we're going to be posting all video content from BevNET Live on the BevNET.com website. If John Craven were here right now, he would say, well, it's pretty redundant to say right now. Say something snide about something like .com and website at the same time. Anywho.
[00:08:32] Melissa Traverse: See, now you can say whatever you want.
[00:08:34] Ray Latif: Now I can say whatever I want, but I still feel, I still feel the glare and the heat from his seat across from me.
[00:08:39] Melissa Traverse: Keeping you in check.
[00:08:40] Ray Latif: Yeah. But all that video content will be available to insiders of BevNET and Nosh. So if you want to tune in, just make sure you're an insider. It's very easy to do. Head to BevNET.com or Nosh.com to find out. More IRL experiences on the horizon. Of course, the Summer Fancy Food Show, which is also happening in New York City, taking place on June 28th, 29th, and 30th. I'll be there. Melissa, you gonna be there?
[00:09:04] Melissa Traverse: I'll be there.
[00:09:05] Ray Latif: Mike, you gonna be there? I'm in. All right. I think John's gonna be there too. You guys, as in John and Mike, you're only gonna be there for a day, right? We usually do that. We usually train in and train out.
[00:09:16] Melissa Traverse: I'll be there the 28th and the 29th. I find that I just like having longer conversations. I get so much more out of them. So I'm going for two days.
[00:09:24] Mike Schneider: It is pretty rough to just go up, try to see everybody that we want to see and then come back. I mean, the Summer Fancy Food Show, one of my favorite shows. It's a fantastic place to just, like, as you said, have longer conversations with people. So we inevitably don't have as many as we'd like to because we're, oh, should we stay a little bit longer?
[00:09:46] Melissa Traverse: And that's where I get so many ideas for non-based content. Same thing with BevNET Live. When you really get into a conversation with someone, that's how you figure out what to base a show around.
[00:09:56] Ray Latif: Yeah. If you're attending or exhibiting at the Summer Fancy Food Show, just let us know. Send us a note to askatasteradio.com or hit us up on LinkedIn, IG, or I guess whatever social media platform you think might be best for us to communicate with you, which is, I just named the top two.
[00:10:12] Melissa Traverse: You can send a carrier pigeon if you want.
[00:10:14] Ray Latif: Is that a social media platform? I'm not sure. It was the original.
[00:10:19] Melissa Traverse: Yeah.
[00:10:20] Ray Latif: And of course we have more meetups on the horizon. Chicago on August 14th, 2026. Just want to make sure we have the year right. San Diego on September 15th, San Francisco on September 17th, and London on October 21st. If you're in any of those cities or visiting those cities, head to tastetrader.com slash meetups to RSVP. Thank you so much to our national partners, Vibrant Ingredients, Belay Solutions, and the Angel Group. Just world-class, world-class folks. So I saw this really interesting story on BevNets earlier this week. It's about a brand called Dry Water, which sounds like an oxymoron, right? Like Do It has this word, but it's a powdered beverage brand that provides hydration benefits, essential vitamins, and it is exploding. The founder of the company is someone I interviewed for Elevator Talk just a short time ago. His name is Brian Appio. And Drywater, according to this article on BevNET, which was penned by our very own Lukas Southard, is expanding to 41,000 locations and will be in those 41,000 locations by the end of the year. This is a brand that was only founded in March of 2024. And one of the most poignant moments in the article was when Brian was talking about how the company built a group that was already in love with and using the brand on a regular basis before they started targeting the big retailers that they're in right now. And that includes a Walmart, a Wegmans, a Kroger, Vitaminshop, and Target. What Brian had said, and this is a quote in the article, is that we built a fan base before even pitching those buyers. When we got the meetings, they literally just said, we drink it already. Tell us how many stores you want. It was never us going to them because we had already championed them as customers.
[00:12:20] Melissa Traverse: And because they waited to launch national retail, they were able to save themselves a lot of capital by iterating before they were in retailers across the country. When you do change your packaging and your product, when you're in retail, especially major retail, there are so many expenses and fees that come up. But because they iterated before they were on shelf in a major way, they saved themselves so much money.
[00:12:47] Ray Latif: You can read the full article about Do It on BevNET.com once again, and by our very own Lukas Southard. Good to see Lucas at BevNET Live too. Yeah. I think we'll see him at Fancy Food as well. So from hydration and vitamin powders to cookies, because that's a natural transition, right? There is a new brand out there, and it's called Fields Good, Fields Good, G-O-O-D. And it is a brand of cookies that feature 10 grams of protein and four grams of, Melissa?
[00:13:25] Melissa Traverse: Fiber. Fiber. There you go. What's the source of fiber?
[00:13:28] Ray Latif: Well, some of them are 10 grams of protein. Some of them. Okay. The one I picked up. The protein cookie is. It's a protein cookie. Oh, okay. These are different mood state cookies. Oh, interesting. Okay. So the first one I picked up was, I thought it was the, I thought they were all the same. This is a peanut butter variety. This is described as a protein cookie. This one has 10 grams of protein. Then there's a Focus cookie, which has three grams of creatine, and it's also boosted with cognizant acetylcholine, which is a brain-boosting ingredient. And then you have a Sleep cookie. This is their Oatmeal Raisin variety, which is baked with 250 milligrams of L-theanine. These are samples, so we don't know the fiber source.
[00:14:08] Melissa Traverse: Ah, dang it.
[00:14:09] Mike Schneider: We'll find out.
[00:14:10] Melissa Traverse: Isn't the founder of this product in relation to- She has famous DNA, yes.
[00:14:14] Mike Schneider: Yes, yes, yes. She is the daughter of Mrs. Fields.
[00:14:18] Ray Latif: She is a legacy founder because she is the daughter of the person who founded Mrs. Fields Cookies. I would say that these have a much healthier tilt than the Mrs. Fields Cookies that you would see at a mall, certainly because they include essential nutrients, like protein or a functional benefit like creatine or L-theanine.
[00:14:43] Mike Schneider: Now, her name's Ashley Fields, FYI.
[00:14:45] Ray Latif: Yes. Now, some folks might have a bone to pick with this brand because people don't necessarily like associating a flavor with a function. In other words, I've heard, and this is from episodes of Elevator Talk where co-hosts have I guess offered some constructive feedback to brands or to founders who have products like these where you say, oh, well, the Oatmeal Raisin variety is only a sleep cookie variety.
[00:15:16] Mike Schneider: That comes right out of my mouth. Like when I say, when I'm thinking of just like what you're saying right here, I'd like to see three protein varieties, three sleep varieties.
[00:15:24] Ray Latif: Right. Like I would love to see a protein cookie that is an Oatmeal Raisin variety. And there's only that one peanut butter variety. Or I might like to say, oh, well, I want a peanut butter variety that's associated with, say, the focus. I mean, perhaps down the line, they will incorporate flavors for each specific function. But at this point, coming out of the gate with a function and a flavor tied to each other, as opposed to, you know, one function, three flavors.
[00:15:52] Melissa Traverse: This is certainly a good way to figure out what hits.
[00:15:55] Mike Schneider: Well, it is, but it's also, it introduces, these are so good. I'm eating the mocha chocolate as I'm talking.
[00:16:01] Ray Latif: Is that the focus one? Oh, there you go.
[00:16:03] Mike Schneider: You're going to see how focused I am. Can I try one of these? Yeah, of course. You're not wrong to say you can figure out what hits, but you're not going to know what hits. If it's the flavor or the function that hits, like let's say the focus cookie explodes. Is it because it's mocha chocolate or is it because of the cognizant?
[00:16:20] Melissa Traverse: I'm trying the mocha chocolate as well. The cognizant has me interested.
[00:16:24] Ray Latif: Yeah. You know what? I would love to see Ashley on stage at Nosh Live in December as part of the Nosh Pitch Slam. We're going to get these folks on Elevator Talk, but it'd be interesting. It'd be interesting to see where the brand is in about six months. And if they have found some success and traction with this strategy as is, or if they plan to evolve and, and expand flavor varieties for each function.
[00:16:51] Mike Schneider: When we spoke to Ashley at Expo West, she was open to any ideas. I mean, they're basically, as we said before, just put the matrix together and trying to figure out what hits with people. And she does like this idea of cookies for moods and cookies for different times of the day.
[00:17:08] Melissa Traverse: Yeah, well the tagline is cookies that taste as good as they feel and they notes smart ingredients taste like nostalgia And only the good stuff, and you know Ashley really does of course have a benefit being a legacy founder It makes me think of Nicole Dawes She was the daughter of the founder of keep cod potato chips, and of course she went on to launch You mean industry legend Nicole does? industry legend, but really I mean she learned so much by watching what her father did and She was able to make really good decisions right out of the gate.
[00:17:41] Mike Schneider: So I'll definitely keep my eye on she also understates That stuff too. She is one smart cookie, right?
[00:17:47] Melissa Traverse: Of course
[00:17:49] Ray Latif: Yes, and she's the founder of Late July, which is a maker of salty snacks, most notable their tortilla chips. She's also now the founder of Nixie, which is a brand of sparkling water and zero calorie sodas.
[00:18:02] Mike Schneider: I mean, usually you're like, oh, they're fantastic. But come on, Ray. These are fantastic.
[00:18:05] Melissa Traverse: They're insane.
[00:18:06] Mike Schneider: Zero calories.
[00:18:07] Melissa Traverse: And, you know, keep keep your eye on Nombase for Nicole Dawes's education course. We have that coming out. So more on that later.
[00:18:16] Ray Latif: That is a coup, because Nicole Dawes is one of the sharpest people I know in the industry. And if I were an early stage founder in the beverage industry or otherwise, I would be like, I've got to tune into that.
[00:18:26] Melissa Traverse: Just standing next to Nicole, I think you would, by osmosis, learn a lot, never mind watching an hour-long course.
[00:18:36] Ray Latif: So, I saw a couple founders, or I met a couple founders at BevNET Live who are marketing kids' drinks. And kids' drinks are always an interesting category to talk about because at the end of the day, the kids are not buying these products. It's the parents who are buying these products. But you've got to market to parents and kids. Two pretty distinct consumer groups.
[00:18:56] Mike Schneider: And they age out. Yeah. Which means you're in constant acquisition mode, which acquisition, as you know, is expensive.
[00:19:03] Ray Latif: Right. And, you know, as a family, you're probably only going to be marketing to that family for a number of years, depending on what age group you're targeting with your brand. But I keep seeing new kids drinks come to market. And in 2026, I feel like I've seen even more kids drinks come to market than in years past. I'm holding two. Now, Willa's is a brand of oat milk that's existed on the market for some time. They recently introduced a new kids product. They have, and it's described as organic kids oat milk with protein. They come in these eight ounce Tetra Pak cartons with a screw top. I forget what they call it. A dream cap is what they call that. It's 120 calories per 8 ounce carton. It includes 6 grams of added sugar and 8 grams of protein. I would say that's a pretty good, healthy beverage for kids. And tasty.
[00:19:54] Melissa Traverse: It's a good snack.
[00:19:55] Ray Latif: Yeah, you get a good amount of nutrients in there. Now kids, I don't know though, I mean, I don't know how many kids just drink oat milk. I think it's a good product. I think if you live in a vegan or vegetarian household, maybe this is a really good option. But I know a lot of kids that love soda.
[00:20:12] Melissa Traverse: I mean, if they're lactose intolerant.
[00:20:14] Ray Latif: That too. Good point. Good point. Now, obviously, kids love soda. Every chance they get a sip of soda is like a dream come true. And I saw this new brand in our cooler called Roxbury. R-O-X-B-R-R-Y. It's described as fizz for kids. No fake stuff. And they have three varieties. The variety I'm holding in my hand is their Galaxy Gulp. It's a citrus product, a citrus flavored product. It contains carbonated water, orange juice, coconut water concentrate, cane sugar, monk fruit, and spirulina. Those are the ones that's ingredients that you probably know. It comes in this short 7.5 ounce fluid can. Now I'm wondering to you guys, I'm going to put this to you and to our audience. Which of these do you think has the better shot of making it? The Willa's oat milk or the Roxbury, we'll call it a soda?
[00:21:04] Melissa Traverse: I'm going Willa's oat milk. I think that's something that a mom or dad would easily give their kid for, you know, to have with breakfast, to have with lunch, whatever. I do think if the kid is lactose intolerant, it would be a good choice. And I think the nutrition factor in the oat milk would put a parent over the edge.
[00:21:24] Ray Latif: Mike?
[00:21:24] Mike Schneider: That's a hard call. I would say the oat milk, because when you put something fizzy in the hands of kids, they've had a lot of soda at this point. And so you probably need to get the flavor as close as possible to something that is the alternative. So yeah, that, that one's going to be a challenge.
[00:21:45] Ray Latif: Yeah, the Roxbury Galaxy Gulp de Citrus is probably going after that Sprite consumer. It's only 25 calories per 7.5 ounce can, so you got to think the flavor is going to be a little different than you would expect from a Sprite, probably significantly different. But I do think that there is some upside. I think there's pretty significant upside, actually, for kids' sodas. I think with the right financial partner or the right strategic partner, I really do think that there's a big runway for better-for-you soda for kids. I mean, think about what better-for-you soda has done for the soda category overall with brands like Poppy and Olipop and Culture Pop coming to market. These are products that no one ever considered, but it's opened up a whole new opportunity to reach consumers who wanted a different kind of soda or never considered soda. And now look.
[00:22:39] Mike Schneider: I disagree. If I was giving one piece of advice to Roxbury, it would be don't waste your time marketing to kids. This stuff tastes great. I'm drinking the Ocean Potion Fruit Punch, which tastes exactly like Better For You Hawaiian Punch. Go after Gen Z and, you know, this is a nostalgia play. I like it too. I'm Gen X, obviously, and I would guzzle this stuff. It's not bad for you. Only five grams of sugar in this. I mean, it is a smaller serving, so that's kind of a lot of sugar, but if I'm only drinking this 7.5 fluid ounce can, this is going to be challenging too. Like just this can size is going to be challenging for you. I'd go 12 ounce, I'd market it with nostalgic flavors, and I'd take my shot that way. This stuff's really good.
[00:23:26] Melissa Traverse: I think the use occasion for the kid's soda is challenging. I mean, in our house, real soda is a special occasion thing, like you go out to eat or, you know, you have a birthday party, something like that. So changing the idea of soda as a special occasion thing to maybe more of an everyday thing because it's better for you, I think is challenging.
[00:23:46] Mike Schneider: I'm not trying to hate on you, Roxbury. This is the hardest business. Like you chose it. You can't not Do It. You're this far into the business. And I give you a lot of credit for what you've accomplished so far, but you know, hit me up. I have net Mike on Instagram. Let's chat. I'd love to, I'd love to break this down a little bit with you because it's a really good tasting beverage. It doesn't have a lot of ingredients. You're using like good things in here. pineapple, black cherry, coconut water, concentrate, citric acid, you know, cane sugar, like all the good things are in this. And I don't know, I think this has a shot at a, you know, a more adult level then. And you're, you're not going to be putting yourself through that constant acquisition and you can create loyal customers forever who, you know, will probably share this with their kids. And you don't have to be a kid's brand to be for kids.
[00:24:37] Melissa Traverse: And Mike, I know you talked about increasing the size, but as an adult myself, I don't know that I hate a smaller can myself.
[00:24:44] Mike Schneider: I just don't know where this is going to be merchandised. That's the biggest problem here. It's you're going to see this can sitting, you know, and are you going to put this next to a poppy? Because I could drink this next to a poppy. I could see this sitting, you know, next to a poppy or a lollipop, man. on shelf or Culture Pop or any of those. And it's, it's like just a bit of a different play on that where you're just going for these nostalgic flavors and better free ingredients. And that's innovation.
[00:25:15] Ray Latif: 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.
[00:26:05] Speaker 1: you
