Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio right now. I am supremely honored to be sitting down with a one and only Ari Raz, the CEO of The Coconut Cult. Ari, it's great to see you. Great to see you, Ray. Thank you for hosting us at this amazing event. Naturally. San Diego at the Puesto at the headquarters. That's right.
This is not the headquarters of Puesto though. This is just the name of the building they we're in, wanna say military barracks. Okay. At the time that got converted into what you see here, which is restaurants and little boutique shops. Yeah, yeah. One that, uh, has flowing amounts of margaritas and tacos here.
So yeah, absolutely. Yes. It looks like everyone is having just an incredible time. So you're the president. Up naturally. San Diego? Yes. You've been at it for how long now? Uh, about five years. Five years. Yeah. I dare say this is the preeminent chapter of the Naturally Network and perhaps the best local organization out there, just bar none.
So, thank you. Uh, congratulations on everything you've done. I mean, it's just a, if you look out the window here, it's a testament to what you guys have created. So well done. Ari, thank you so much. Yeah, we're very proud of what we've built and we couldn't have done it without. The city and you know, the people who live here and all the amazing brands that were either founded here or the entrepreneurs who moved here to start brands.
So it's all a beautiful community and honestly, very inspiring. And shout out to Renee Solaris, who is the executive director of Naturally San Diego. Things are going well. Thank you. Things are going well with The Coconut Cult as well, and I, uh, I'm so happy because I was in Target the other day. And, uh, I saw the Coconut Cult for the first time.
And it was your debut Yes. At that retailer. And not only was it your debut at the retailer, it was the debut of your minis. Yes. These four ounce cups of the coconut cult that come in three varieties. We've already been raving about these on taste radio. Talk about the origins of this and, and you know, what you're trying to do with this launch of smaller sized Absolutely.
Yeah. No problem. So the Coconut cult minis were a dream. About four and a half years in the making. I'm sure there are some folks in our audience who somehow are not familiar with the coconut ket. What do you guys do? We make probiotic coconut yogurt that is completely clean label. So really all the ingredients on the label are whole food ingredients, and we ferment our coconut cream with a unique blend of 16 strains of very functional probiotics so that every ounce of coconut cult.
Has about 50 billion CFUs of probiotics. Realistically, this is a yogurt that is used by many as their daily probiotic supplement. Mm-hmm. For gut health, but also a host of many other benefits due to the unique strains that we use in this yogurt. And so the development of these cups, these four ounce minis, I would think has been a long time in the making.
Absolutely. If the Coconut Cult is a mainstay in natural retailers, you go into a Whole Foods. That's right. You're gonna see it. You go to a Sprouts, you go to a obvious, you're gonna see it going into Target. Yes. That's a big move. Yes. And from what I know of the company, what I know of you is you are patient and thoughtful on how you grow.
Why was the timing right? How long has this product been in development? How long have you been in negotiations with Target? Sure. So about four and a half years ago, we started to talk about creating a four ounce version of Coconut Cult. And you can imagine that when you're just in ideation mode of a new concept, that product could go in so many different directions, right?
And ultimately where we landed was, you know, we don't wanna make a different type of yogurt. We don't want to make some new product that Coconut Cult has. Now a, for instance, a diluted yogurt with less probiotics, right? That's not what we're about. So what we landed on was we wanna take the eight ounce jars that our customers know.
Yeah. These are eight ounce glass jars. They're eight ounce glass jars. Yep. And shrink them down into a format that would allow us to bring the coconut cult down in price to a more accessible price point. So that more people can access it, can try a variety of flavors and really discover what it is that so many people have fallen in love with.
And with these minis, we're able to get the price down to a, a very reasonable 3 99 per four ounces. Mm-hmm. And for anybody who knows the Coconut Cult, you would know that typically our jars, our eight ounce jars, sell between 9 99 to 1199 depending on what part of the country you're in. So for us to be able to really shrink down that price point to a more accessible level without sacrificing the quality of the ingredients, the functional nature of the probiotics and the yogurt itself, and delivering what I think is one of the best coconut cult experiences to date, it truly is, uh, it's a marvelous product and it's, it's a very intentional product at that why was target the right retailer for this rollout?
So I have personal experience working with Target from my time at Once Upon a Farm. You are the co-founder, one of the co-founders of Once Upon a Farm as well. I'm one of the co-founders of Once Upon a Farm, so I have plenty of experience working with Target. I know the Target customer. I know that there's certain categories of premium CPG that do extraordinarily well at Target.
I know that there's a customer there for a product like this. So, you know, going into the development of this product. From day one, I went in with the mindset that this was gonna be the product that launched us in Target. And Target has been such a phenomenal partner to work with, primarily because they knew they were gonna be the exclusive, uh, launch partners for these items that we have put so much work into.
They gave us national distribution from the get go along with a five week off shelf for the launch and. All of that has honestly led to the product taking off in sales beyond our wildest imaginations. So we're all very, very excited and enthusiastic about the launch and how it's been going. It's taking everything for me not to rip open this banana cream pie variety, which I've already eaten.
It's so freaking good. Oh, thank you. It also comes in a lemon meringue variety. And a organic berry basket variety and all of them taste just incredible. You didn't have these at your popup in New York? No. Did you? We did not. No. And you know, your popup in New York is something I wanna talk about. You have Sure.
Some of your, um, I guess, felt art. Felt art. Yes. From that, you know, getting the word out there about your brand is so important. Getting people to know what you're doing and why they should be buying your product is really. Tough, but it's so critical to being able to scale. Popups are a great way to do that.
Sometimes it can be expensive. Yes. Sometimes they can be like a good idea that's not executed well. Sure. How did you make sure that you were creating a, a, a popup that would actually resonate with the right people, the right audience? Well, first of all, we, we put a lot of intention into the timing of the popup and the location, so we decided to do it during New York Fashion Week in soho.
Which was a great call because it's super, if you're ever in New York and soho during fashion week, you'll see it is, uh, the streets are just flooded. So even if you go in with your popup with no awareness, no marketing beforehand, you're guaranteed to get plenty of foot traffic. Interesting. Just by the numbers of people who, who descend upon soho.
Now, what we decided to put together. Was what we called the collab lab. So we rented out a 1500 square foot space that had a, a initial lobby, and you walk into the lobby area and you basically create the parfait of your dreams. So you can choose between four different coconut cold flavors and about 30 different toppings from brands like Simple Mills, you know, midday Squares, you name it.
Natural CPG brand we love with clean ingredients. You could put it on a yogurt. Then once you make your parfait, you go into the next area where we had our felt art marketplace. So lining the shelves, we had about 45 different brands. Some of them are represented here. Brands like op, we had mal, we had Costa Arena, olive Oil, midday Square.
So many brands, simple Mills, but basically felt representations of their products lining the shelves. We had a custom papa shot for people to play. We had a custom claw machine for people to play where they could win the felt art, and then we had different miniature activations for the first couple days.
For instance, we did an activation with milk where people could make a milkshake using coconut cult. Mm-hmm. We then had a dirty soda bar where people could pull draft op and mix it with our yogurt and make their own dirty soda. We did a fish wife activation where we created fish wife tacos. Topped with Cleveland Kitchen, uh, sauerkraut.
Wow. Which was incredible. I mean, so many different activations. And what it really represented for us was this coming together of all these like-minded brands that are pushing clean, healthy, real food out to the world. And we wanted to just celebrate them in a space. And we were able to do that for about two weeks.
And every day we had over a thousand attendees. Wow. Walk through the doors. So it really was a magical, you know, once in a lifetime experience. It got a lot, a lot of attention on, you know, TikTok and Instagram. A lot of content creators showed up. Our founder Noah, who's a content creator himself, invited a lot of New York content creators.
They even did a panel at the popup, which was very special. So, you know, it was really just a way for us to. Celebrate our friendships in the community, but also just give people this very broad introduction to, to the world that we live in. Yeah. And the fact that really, you know, at the end of the day it is a community and, and that's how we think about it.
Yeah. We're kind of coming full circle here. Yeah. It's all about community. Yeah. Whether it's here at naturally San Diego and everything that you do for the community locally. And I think just the industry as a whole. You know, when one brand wins, we all win. Uh, yes. Uh, when one brand gets acquired for $2 billion, it's a good thing for everyone.
I think it, it shows that, uh, you know, good can happen. Yes. When you do the right thing, right. And good can happen when you're pushing the bigger legacy players. To adopt better ingredients, to embrace new formulations that are healthier and better for people in general. So, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Ari, thank you so much for taking the time.
Thank you, Ray. Thanks so much for everything you're doing. I know you're a wanted man down there, but I really appreciate you doing this. Thank you. Absolutely wouldn't have it any other way. Thanks, Ray. Thank you. Thank you.
Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio right now I am supremely honored to be sitting down with Starr Edwards, who's the co-founder of Bitching Sauce. Star is great to see you. Thank you, Ray. Good to see you too. Bitching Sauce is one of the most incredible companies of the last 10 years. It really is. I mean, thank you.
It's an Almond Dip brand. Number one. You know how many people would've thought an Almond Dip brand would be nationally sold at every retailer in the country? The name of it, and we talked about this last time. Yes. Bitches says, could you actually sell, you know, a brand? Could you actually have the word bitching in every major retailer in the country?
Turns out, yes. Not only that, you've gone into so many different formats and now new categories that this is not something I could have expected. Did you have a sense that this brand would be where it is today when you first started out? I'll answer this by saying I've been so delightfully surprised every time I'm like, oh my gosh, the ceiling of this brand is so much further than what I thought.
I was so excited when it was, oh, we sold 50 sauces at the farmer's market. I thought that was incredible. And then it was like 500 sauces at the farmer's market. I was like, there's no way. And even just getting into stores was insane to me. Yeah. So as we continue to grow the brand, you know, I'm, I am.
Trying to navigate through a lot of, like you said, you know, this is an almond dip who expected for people to like an almond dip this much that it could go nationwide. That's is insane. Yeah. But being able to also then be like, all right, well what else do we got? What else do we like? What else tastes good?
And that's been a really fun journey, especially in the past like 18 months where we're unleashing things. And your almond dips all taste amazing. You've got, how many varieties do you have at this point? We got like 20. Seven we're, we're getting Baskin Robbins with it. Okay. We have a flavor graveyard.
Before we get to these amazing new products that you brought to the table here, I wanna talk about something that is very specific and personal to you, which is a cookbook. Yes. You just launched a cookbook. I launched a cookbook, yes. Tell us all about that. So I did the 30 Days of Bitch and Bulls. Okay.
Which was insane. But afterwards we had 30 amazing recipes and then all of these sub recipes too. And my team was just the sweetest. They're like, let's film it all. Let's get it like some beautiful pictures of this. Let's get the recipes down on paper. And it was such a labor of love really from them more than me.
'cause I am really good at just kind of whipping things up, but then to get people to translate it into words and pictures like the team did so much heavy lifting. It's insane. So it's actually, it's, it's by me and. Sarah Hale and Lauren Farrah, who also worked for Bitch and Sauce. But yeah, we launched this book and it's so much fun.
And the name of the book you've said a couple times is Sauced. Sauced. Sauced. I like it. I mean, I guess we've said it indirectly a number of times. Yeah, and it makes a lot of sense. You can't necessarily have sauce unless, well, you can't have a dip unless you have something to dip it with. True bitch in style, tortilla chip.
Well, yes, they're authentically bitching style. They're made with avocado oil. We are almond, you know, really at our core, and we're so excited to debut these because almond oil has not always been available. Mm-hmm. In like the commercial capacity that we've needed. And so here we are where we used to sell chips at the farmer's markets too.
Oh, okay. Um, so like this has been like really r and d over a number of years to break it out with the almond oil and to make it in such a way that we're, you know, able to. To keep up with all the munchers out there. This is the first, if I'm mistaken, this is the first, this is the very first one. Non almond dip.
Yes. That you've come out with. It's a different category. It's a different part of the store. Obviously this is not refrigerated. How long did you wait until you felt like you were complete? Were, do you feel like you're completely buttoned up with this product at this point? Uh, I don't know. We probably have some tweaks to do.
There's always things that happen, but when we realized that the staff was like so addicted to the product that we're just like, I will take it in any format. We're like, unleash it. Unleash the chips on the world. I, they're so good. I like that. If I were an entrepreneur, I would, this is just me. I'm like, let's not release anything until we get it.
Perfect. What's the saying? You know, don't let, uh, perfect get in the way of progress or some, something to that effect. Yes, and I'm glad you said that. 'cause I think that gives our audience, it gives founders a little bit more flexibility in how they think about going to market. But again, it's not necessarily a, a category that you know, as well as refrigerated dips.
And so there's probably some. Things you're gonna learn along the way. Oh, definitely. I think 15 years in though to their bitching journey, we just have realized that even the most perfect plans can just flop. Yeah. Where are these being sold? The tortilla chips we are just now. I don't wanna debut the retailer just yet.
Okay. But we are just now going to debut on the East coast, which is very exciting. But this is the first launch of these into retail and it's very, very, very exciting for us. Very cool. What's the price point? It's like 5 99. Okay. I mean, that's reasonable, especially given that they're made with almond oil.
The almond oil is extremely premium. People don't realize this. It's in a lot of beauty products. This is basically functional food. Okay. You eat it and it makes you pretty as you enter year 16, are we now in year 16? Yes. Year 16. I'm sure you get this question a lot. What has been the most important lesson that you've learned since starting the company?
You know, you in LA when I interviewed you, or was it almost five years ago now? I think you were still trying to, it felt this way anyway. You were still trying to figure out how far can we take this thing? You had already taken it pretty far, but even in the last five years, you've grown so much within those five years, and even maybe before that, what's been the most important lesson that you've learned?
I do get this question a lot, and it's always actually the same answer, which, I'm sorry. It's kind of boring. No, it's fine. But the truth is, it's just always do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. It's a difficult thing actually when you are an entrepreneur because there's so much unknown and there's so much uncertainty.
And especially I would say right now, I mean like in the past year, we've dealt with like the most just crazy left field things that, you know, we're, we're never prepared for. And just having to remind yourself that you've been taken care of in the past and that you've gotten through challenges in the past, I just think, you know, from the get go, it's always just do not be afraid.
I love that. I love that. And I think we kind of touched on that. We were talking about the launch of these tortilla chips as well. I think the one takeaway that I would also stress is that quality is always going to be a big part of the winning formulation. A winning of the winning equation. Your products are always made with really high quality ingredients.
They taste amazing, and you've always stuck to your guns about the name of the brand. And what it looks like, what the package design is all about. And it's, it's worked. So if it works for you, I think it's a good piece of insight for entrepreneurs listening. Sometimes you know what's best for your brand.
Sometimes you know what's best for your company. And it can be scary to hear other people saying, no, go this way or go that way. But at the end of the day, I think your intuition, your gut and what got you here in the first place. Might be the best advice you can give yourself. That's so encouraging. Thank you.
Yeah, definitely. Our core thing is it must taste good first and it must not compromise ingredients. There you go. So yeah, star, there's a party downstairs here at the Naturally San Diego event. I think we should both go and get a margarita and a taco. I think so, yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you, Ray.
Thank you.
