[00:00:10] Ray Latif: Hello, and thanks for tuning in to 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-host for this episode, John Craven, Melissa Traverse, and Mike Schneider. This week, we dig into Barilla Group's acquisition of Goodles and how the mac and cheese brand's success reflects growing demand for better-for-you versions of familiar legacy products. We also look at Medici Brand's $2.2 billion valuation following its Series B raise, the launch of its better-for-you candy brand Hall Pass, and the company's strategy of rethinking two of the most familiar formats in CPG, candy bars David Protein bars. We sample Hall Pass and get a sneak peek at David's new seasonal pumpkin spice bar David Protein shake. Finally, we've got a big celebrity move in the functional beverage space. Kendall Jenner is joining Trip as a shareholder and global ambassador. Welcome back to the studio, everyone. Hope everyone had a good long weekend. I know it's three days past Labor Day, but hopefully no one was actually working on the day because we have a lot going on in the weeks and months to come. That includes our Taste Radio meetups in San Diego and San Francisco that are happening next week. in San Diego at the BevNET West Coast branch on September 15th. That is happening from 5 to 7 30 p.m. You don't want to miss it if you're in the San Diego area or really anywhere in Southern California and can make that little drive up from Perhaps LA or drive down, excuse me. Don't drive up. Don't drive up. I mean, if you want to go to San Francisco, if you're in Mexico, you could drive up. If you're in Mexico, drive up. But once again, September 15th, September 17th, two days later, we'll be in San Francisco at the San Francisco Brewing Company. They have a brand new facility that will be hosting the event at. All the details are at Taste Radio.com slash meetups. Many more details to come, including who will be speaking at the events. I'm really excited to sit down with one of the co-founders of the Angel Group that's happening at the Taste Radio San Diego meetup. Her name is Maddy Cervante. I hope I'm pronouncing her last name correctly. But as we all know, the Angel Group is a network of angel investors that have been involved with some of the most high profile CPG brands in recent years, including of course, Poppy and a little brand, small up and coming brand called Goodles. Has anyone heard of Goodles? I've heard of it. Yeah.
[00:02:57] John Craven: Yeah. I've also heard of it. I don't know much about them though.
[00:02:59] Ray Latif: No, no, that's too bad. Because they were bustles. Just kidding. Yeah. Don't you have a webinar with them?
[00:03:06] John Craven: We just did a webinar with Goodles and Culture Pop and it was phenomenal.
[00:03:10] Ray Latif: I love how you pronounce Goodles, Goodles. It's a very masculine way of saying it.
[00:03:15] Melissa Traverse: It's good. Teva, Teva, just eat the damn noodles.
[00:03:16] John Craven: Yeah, it's good noodles. That's how I think of it.
[00:03:19] Ray Latif: Oh, I like that. I like it. Maybe that's where they came up with the idea. Anywho. Oh boy. What? What's wrong with that? I didn't. It's possible. Anyway.
[00:03:28] Mike Schneider: Good job, Captain Obvious. Potato, potata.
[00:03:30] Ray Latif: Last week, it was announced that the Barilla Group, the Italian pasta giant, agreed to acquire Goodle's, which is, we know, is a better for you mac and cheese brand. According to a story written by our very own Shauna Golden, financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but upon closing, Goodles will continue to operate independently as a standalone brand, quote, free to make its own decisions about product, recipes, quality, ingredients, suppliers, marketing, and more. Kind of interesting. Do they have to use burrito pasta though? I don't think so, but maybe in the future they will. They're kind of messed up if they don't.
[00:04:09] John Craven: If you're a pasta brand and you don't have David Protein pasta, what are you even doing? I was actually at a Whole Foods this weekend and I saw DeChico had an entire end cap of their protein boost pasta, which I hadn't seen before. So if you have pasta, you got to David Protein in it somewhere.
[00:04:26] Melissa Traverse: Morella was OG with protein pasta. They had it before the protein craze. Did they? I think they kind of started it.
[00:04:33] John Craven: Were they using beans or something? Chickpeas maybe? Chickpeas? Yeah.
[00:04:37] Ray Latif: Well, congratulations to co-founders Jen Zesnut, excuse me, Zes Zut. I don't know how to pronounce her last name either. It's just called Jen Z. Jen Z. Oh my, that's even better than a dad joke.
[00:04:51] Melissa Traverse: Anyway. It was a dad joke. That's just a joke.
[00:04:53] Ray Latif: Yes. Jen Zesut. I better remember how to pronounce that name because I'm going to ask the interviewer soon. And of course, Paul Earl, who is the co-founder and creative genius behind Google's According to the article as well, all 73 employees will be retained with no changes to the reporting structure. That's also good news. Good news.
[00:05:13] Melissa Traverse: I wonder if it's going to cut their squishmallow budget. What are you talking about? Oh, the squishies that they have at Expo West, the plushies and stuff. That's really fun.
[00:05:21] John Craven: Well, hopefully you hoarded some away and you have a good, you could sell them on eBay.
[00:05:25] Ray Latif: Sure. Do people still sell stuff on eBay?
[00:05:28] John Craven: Oh yeah.
[00:05:28] Ray Latif: Yeah. Did last week.
[00:05:29] Melissa Traverse: Yeah. Bro. Yes.
[00:05:33] Ray Latif: Well, I'm going to have to ask Maddie about this deal because the Angel Group invested in Goodall's back in 2020 when the brand was in its infancy. This is a classic case of Incremental Betterness, right? You're not reinventing the wheel here. You're just making something that everyone understands, everyone's eaten at some point in their lives, but making it a little bit better. Exactly. Yeah. And this is John Craven's favorite talking point, which is you don't need to change the world when it comes to innovation. You need to just make something that is Incremental Betterness than what is currently available.
[00:06:10] Melissa Traverse: Well, at least in this business, that seems to be the case because you didn't really have to do a heck of a lot of education for somebody to understand what Google's was. You see it, you know exactly what you're going to get, and you can see that it's got, you know. more Epicurean flavors.
[00:06:25] Jeffrey Klineman: I mean, it is the classic, you know, you took an area of the store or category, whatever, that has kind of a lot of similar old legacy brands and you gave it a modern fun brand and you gave it modern fun flavors.
[00:06:42] Melissa Traverse: But you also had the Trojan horse in that category too, that you could follow the playbook of, which was Annie's.
[00:06:47] Ray Latif: Yeah, absolutely. I think this is a brand that spoke to your point a bit more to Gen Z consumers. It had a very nostalgic vibe, but also familiar vibe and just felt different. It was not your mom and dad's or even your older brother or sister's mac and cheese brand. It was theirs.
[00:07:05] John Craven: It has protein in it, it has fiber in it, and they really have done such a good job with the flavor. The noodles themselves have some toothsomeness to them, like sometimes with Better For You Pasta, it just turns into mush. They did an excellent job with the product development, which is why people keep buying and eating it, obviously.
[00:07:23] Melissa Traverse: It has cheese with an S, not a Z. Also, this brand spun up and sold pretty fast compared to a lot of brands that we've seen out there. About six years.
[00:07:33] Ray Latif: Noodles debuted in 2020.
[00:07:36] Melissa Traverse: Pretty standard.
[00:07:37] John Craven: I don't know. I feel like that's what so many brands want, but it's hard to achieve.
[00:07:42] Ray Latif: Another really interesting part of the story that Shauna wrote, she quoted data from the Wall Street Journal that indicated or stated that the brand Goodles captured 7.8% of US spending on shelf Sable Mac and Cheese during the 12 months ending in June, a 0.8% from three years earlier, according to numerator data cited by the Wall Street Journal. That is crazy.
[00:08:07] John Craven: It's crazy. In that webinar, I was talking to Stephanie, their head of marketing. I can't remember what the exact number was, but it was something like 80% of the people who are eating and buying Goodall's have not been eating mac and cheese. They haven't been eating Kraft. They haven't been eating Annie's. It's new business, which is incredible.
[00:08:27] Ray Latif: That is amazing. And I think it also speaks to the interest that investors have in CPG and food and beverage CPG. And it's, it's another acquisition that we've seen, another huge acquisition that we've seen just in recent weeks. I mean, About three weeks ago, it was announced that Purely Elizabeth was being acquired by Ferraro. And even though the acquisition price was not disclosed, as I mentioned on this show, and other investors have pointed out, it was in the range of $850 to $900 million. Our dear friend Kyle Fitzpatrick, who's the founder of Paperboy Ventures on LinkedIn last week, noted that Google sold to the Barilla Group for about approximately $500 million. And you know, he would probably know. He is in that world and pretty dialed in. So remarkable stuff. Of course, we can't talk about acquisitions and big numbers without talking about Medici Brands, the founder of David. Well, the owner of David, the founder of David is actually Peter Rahal of RX Bar fame. Medici Brands recently closed on a $250 million series B round that valued the company. And get this, 2.25, Mike, you can do it, billion dollars. There is the pinky, there it is. 2.25 billion dollars?
[00:09:49] Melissa Traverse: That's a lot.
[00:09:50] Ray Latif: Look, we've been in this business for a long time. John, you've been in this business longer than all of us. Have you ever seen a company achieve that kind of valuation this early into their development? Maybe. Don't know off the top of my head. Okay. But that's quick. It's pretty outstanding. It's pretty remarkable. It's a very, it's an exceptional number to see at a time when what they're what, maybe two years in, if that. And a lot of credit. to Peter Rahal Hall who is moving as quickly as he can and really I think attempting to deliver again that incremental change that people want out of protein bars and as we're seeing out of candy bars and as we're going to see very soon out of protein shakes as well. I mention candy bars because Medici Brands recently introduced a new brand called Hall Pass. spelled like you would expect it to be spelled and Hall Pass is a maker of Well, I don't know if I could call it better for you because they contain artificial ingredients, but better than existing candy.
[00:10:57] Melissa Traverse: Well, that is what better for you is.
[00:10:58] Ray Latif: I guess that is better for you. It's a different type of better for you.
[00:11:00] Melissa Traverse: It's a different type of better for you. You don't have to reinvent better for you. You can just use it.
[00:11:05] Ray Latif: Better for you is not a one size fits all. OK, so technically better for you. They make peanut butter cups. They made VFY.
[00:11:12] John Craven: That's actually a good point. Is Diet Coke better for you because it has zero calories and zero sugar?
[00:11:17] Melissa Traverse: No, but there's better-for-you Diet Coke. Better-for-you Diet Cola, rather.
[00:11:22] Ray Latif: If you want to talk about Nixie, I know you're going to bring up Nixie. I would say that's better. Zero calories, zero sugar.
[00:11:29] John Craven: It does have aspartame in it though. Diet Coke does. Yes.
[00:11:32] Ray Latif: But anyway, Hall Pass is debuting in Walmart stores exclusively. They have three products out right now. They have an M&M type product, which they call chocolatey candy pieces. As I mentioned, they have peanut butter cups and they have a peanut cream crispy wafer, which is KitKat-ish, but not really KitKat-ish. It's different. All of them contain 70 calories per package, one gram of sugar.
[00:11:56] Melissa Traverse: Well, you know what would be great, Ray, is if we had Peter Rahal come to Nosh Live.
[00:12:01] Ray Latif: Yeah, well, yeah, exactly. He's got products in both food and beverage, and maybe we can have some Hall Pass on hand and some David Bars on hand at both events. of course Nosh live is happening on december 3rd and 4th BevNET live on the 6th through the 8th and Brewbound live december 9th and 10th very exciting stuff you don't want to miss any of the events I don't know, perhaps if you're an investor or a retail buyer or distributor, you might come to all three. But if you're in any of the one particular industries, that of food, beverage, beer or adjacent beverages, as I like to call them, you definitely need to be at these events. And of course, yes, we would love to have Peter Rahal on stage at BevNET Live or Nosh Live or both.
[00:12:45] Melissa Traverse: Industry legend Bill Shufelt says you should come to all three.
[00:12:48] Ray Latif: There you go.
[00:12:48] John Craven: You know, I was talking to the team. He said it. Not you, it was him. I was talking to the team at PepperTux last week and they were saying that they met their primary investor and they met the retailer that they just did a big launch in at Nosh Live. So that's the kind of stuff that happens.
[00:13:07] Ray Latif: Outstanding. And yes, we are going to be announcing speakers over the next few weeks for all three events. So stay tuned for that. I have a feeling we're going to hear some pretty big names. We're going to keep you up to date on those names and all things that are related to the events in podcasts to come. So keep listening to Taste Radio and keep your eye on BevNET, Nosh, and BooBound.com. Obviously, there's a dot com after BevNET and Nosh. It's not obvious, right? Mike likes to point that out. Ray's the guy that still finds websites by going to Yahoo. I love Yahoo. I really do. Of course you do. Of course I do. What's wrong with Yahoo? That's right. That's the now who's dating themselves. Okay.
[00:13:49] Melissa Traverse: I just, I have like so many useless jingles in my head and I can still hum the whole what's happening theme songs. Yeah.
[00:13:55] Ray Latif: I don't even know what that is. Speaking of dating myself. So the one thing I'll say about Hall Pass is that I mentioned these contain artificial ingredients. They're artificially flavored specifically. And you know, I was having lunch the other day with a few industry folks and someone pointed out that Because Diet Coke has been a beverage of the moment for a lot of folks, fridgesig, and they seem to, they call it a fridgesig, and they don't seem to care that Diet Coke does have artificial ingredients. Who's to say that consumers are going to care that much about Hall Pass having artificial ingredients, especially when these products only contain 70 calories and one gram of sugar.
[00:14:34] John Craven: 70 calories is a good number for, I'm actually holding the chocolatey candy pieces here. I mean, it's a significant number of pieces of candy that you get here. I tried these and it's probably no surprise to anyone that they weren't my favorite. When I tried them, I think I immediately just tasted the sweetener system, the fat system, the color and flavor system.
[00:14:59] Melissa Traverse: You taste the colors?
[00:15:01] John Craven: Well, I mean, I didn't taste, it like didn't... What is that, synesthesia?
[00:15:05] Ray Latif: Synesthesia. I can also taste... Taste the rainbow?
[00:15:07] John Craven: I can taste sound too.
[00:15:08] Ray Latif: How much LSD were you having before that? No, I'm just kidding.
[00:15:11] John Craven: They were speaking to me. But I didn't taste candy. I tasted the whey powder and the corn.
[00:15:17] Jeffrey Klineman: It just didn't taste... Man, Womp Womp from Melissa.
[00:15:19] John Craven: Yeah, Womp Womp. I don't know. It didn't taste like candy to me.
[00:15:22] Jeffrey Klineman: So this stuff, I'm looking at the back of the peanut butter cup here. It's got some recognizable non-nutritive sweeteners, allulose, erythritol. Tagetose. Sucralose, S-sulfane, potassium. I think it's actually pretty good in terms of products that have gone heavy on alternative sweeteners. Maybe a little bit of like an aftertaste, but I don't know. These stack up pretty good compared to like a Reese's product. There's definitely better higher end candy out there, but I think for what they're going for, which just seems like, again, mainstream. I'm kind of impressed with the flavor.
[00:15:57] Melissa Traverse: I mean, so first of all, you guys have been hoarding this thing for at least a week, and I finally got my hands on the peanut butter cup, which is my favorite candy. I'd say this is maybe my third favorite CPG peanut butter cup. This is pretty good.
[00:16:12] Jeffrey Klineman: Interesting. I will say the chocolatey candy pieces seem like the weakest of the three.
[00:16:17] John Craven: That's the only thing I tried.
[00:16:18] Melissa Traverse: I mean, if you're wondering what the ranking would be, Superfoodio, nothing touches that, and then Reese's peanut butter cup, and then
[00:16:24] John Craven: Justin's doesn't make it on there.
[00:16:29] Ray Latif: I Think to Peter's credit he is focused on flavor first and foremost David bars first came out people were not enamored with the flavor and he's like look we got to make this taste better and So he said if we need to include artificial ingredients to make it taste better that's what we're gonna do and David bars currently contain artificial flavoring and And so the way to get people to eat better food is training wheels, is incremental. Like you've got to start somewhere. You've got to say, okay, this is a better product that has a similar taste to what you expect. Now, eventually, and I hope this is the case with David and Halpass, they'll get to a place where they can remove those artificial ingredients and make it taste better. They're not there yet. David also introduced a new pumpkin spice flavored bar. I assume this is a limited edition product just for the season. I have not tried this yet, but it comes in this beautiful pumpkin-y gold wrapper here. Let's give this a whirl.
[00:17:28] John Craven: It is very orange.
[00:17:28] Ray Latif: Yes. I mean, I hope you like pumpkin. And the bar is very orange too, okay?
[00:17:34] Melissa Traverse: Ray sampling. Oh my oh That is so orange.
[00:17:39] Jeffrey Klineman: It's insane. That's like Taste Radio orange.
[00:17:41] Ray Latif: It is Taste Radio orange. Oh, yeah, it's very good I mean the texture is excellent the flavor of the pumpkin is not overwhelming, but it's spicy I found it to be awfully pumpkin. This is delicious.
[00:17:52] Melissa Traverse: Yeah, it really is good if you like again you better like pumpkin Why would you pick up a pumpkin David bar if you don't like pumpkin? I mean there's degrees of pumpkin John that is like that's maximum pumpkin Does it have the pumpkin spice in it or is it?
[00:18:08] Ray Latif: Pumpkin spice, but this is several times better Starbucks double sugar pumpkin spice latte level Pumpkin pumpkin, but this is again several times better in terms of texture and flavor than the original first David bar I think it's good. Yeah, if you like pumpkin How many times do you have to say pumpkin?
[00:18:28] John Craven: Well, a lot of people hate pumpkin spice with a ferocity that is incredibly high.
[00:18:36] Jeffrey Klineman: So again, don't touch it if you don't like it. The last thing I want to say about the Hall Pass, by the way, This to me is really intriguing in the sense that compared to David, which is very much like a functional product, this has no tie to David. Right. And it's not really pitching you anything hard. It's just kind of letting that 70 calories per package be the hero, which I think is kind of a clever strategy to be honest. You know, it's just simple. Like it doesn't need to say much else, you know?
[00:19:11] John Craven: Yeah, and they are using EPG in the Hall Pass products as well, which makes sense.
[00:19:16] Jeffrey Klineman: But there's two grams of protein in this, so it's not like something that you would market it for David Protein.
[00:19:21] Ray Latif: Right. Notable also that the one gram of sugar call out is pretty small in the package. I think a lot of times consumers will see a low sugar count and think this is not going to taste good. So interestingly, they don't call that or I guess strategically intelligent that they don't call that out as much as they probably could. Well, once again, kudos to Peter and his team. They are pressing on the gas and doing some really remarkable things in food and now beverage as well. Stay tuned for our discussion and perhaps a review of the David Protein shake, which I believe we'll be getting soon. So I got a great email last week from the co-founder and CEO of Temple Lifestyle Brands, which is a Canadian-based functional beverage platform that is a maker of Thirsty Buddha Coconut Water and Rye'Rise Kombucha. The email was from a man named Chris Magnon, and his last name is spelled M-A-G-N-O-N-E. I'm trying to pronounce it as they might in Montreal. He noted that we screwed up last week. Maybe I screwed up last week.
[00:20:30] Mike Schneider: We screwed up? What? Again? How is that possible?
[00:20:33] Ray Latif: What did we screw up? Just for context, I was talking about the Montreal Expos and how the team was moved to Miami and became the Miami Marlins. I was wrong about that. As Chris pointed out, just listen to episode 858, and as a Montrealer, figured I would let you know that the Expos moved to Washington. Yeah, not Miami. That's right. It's true. Yes. He noted that it's still painful for us I'm not sure if you saw the documentary on Netflix that released this year, but it's good.
[00:20:59] John Craven: I knew all of this.
[00:21:00] Jeffrey Klineman: I just didn't want to call you I did watch that documentary though.
[00:21:08] Melissa Traverse: Oh, yeah.
[00:21:08] Jeffrey Klineman: Yeah, it's pretty good.
[00:21:09] Ray Latif: Okay.
[00:21:09] Melissa Traverse: Well as noted yeah, they had top uniforms that expose I can see why they'd be sad that they would leave
[00:21:15] Ray Latif: The expo is that, I mean, it's just a really fun team. Montreal is a really fun city. And Chris pointed out that we need to swing up to Montreal and make a trip soon. Maybe a future Taste Radio.
[00:21:26] Melissa Traverse: Yeah, we need another international Taste Radio meetup.
[00:21:33] Ray Latif: It's done. We're going to Montreal, folks.
[00:21:36] John Craven: Jake, we're coming up.
[00:21:38] Jeffrey Klineman: What if you do have an idea for a future Taste Radio meetup location? We'll take suggestions for 2027.
[00:21:45] Melissa Traverse: We do have some ideas for expansion. Sorry, Chris.
[00:21:49] Ray Latif: Oh, I see what you did there.
[00:21:50] Melissa Traverse: Okay.
[00:21:51] Ray Latif: Yeah. Let us know. Send us an email to askatastereview.com if you have some ideas for cities for future meetups. All right. As per usual, we have a lot of new products that were sent to the office over the past week. And we have an extra day because no one was in the office yesterday. So we have about eight days worth of new products instead of seven. Melissa, I think a Capri Splash flavor. I am really interested in this. This is a, this is an interesting flavor for a familiar brand.
[00:22:23] John Craven: Yes. So I have Koya's new Protein Pop here in front of me. I'm holding the pre-splash. I also have the pink twist and the sour squeeze. I haven't tried this yet.
[00:22:37] Ray Latif: These are new flavors for their Protein Pop line, if I'm not mistaken, right? Yeah.
[00:22:42] John Craven: Yeah. So it's Protein Pop, two grams of sugar, 10 grams of protein, four grams of fiber.
[00:22:46] Melissa Traverse: Before you sip that, I'll indulge with you.
[00:22:47] Ray Latif: Okay, oh, you don't want Moses germs on Okay, I appreciate that Cheers Mike So Koya, which is Helms and co-founded by Chris Hunter They introduced Protein Pop was it earlier this year or last year. I can't remember. I just I'm getting all the timelines mixed up I think it was earlier this year
[00:23:09] Jeffrey Klineman: I think earlier this year, like around Expo West, maybe.
[00:23:12] John Craven: I love Capri Splash as a flavor. That's such a fun idea. It's something like it makes you think of Capri Sun. It kind of tastes like Capri Sun. But again, that sweetness that comes from the stevia and the monk fruit. It's a strong sweetness.
[00:23:30] Melissa Traverse: Yeah, I'd say the flavor needs a little bit of work. The can's fantastic. Value proposition works. All that's, you know, it's using the Koya brand. It screams Protein Pop over Koya, which I think is fantastic. And I really like the graphics.
[00:23:43] John Craven: Yeah, the design is gorgeous. And again, Capri Splash, that sounds like something I'd want to drink all day long.
[00:23:48] Melissa Traverse: What's the protein they're using?
[00:23:49] John Craven: So much fun. They are using clear pea protein.
[00:23:53] Melissa Traverse: Pea protein is one of those that the flavor is really hard to mask.
[00:23:56] John Craven: I also find with protein sodas, the thing that turns me off immediately is usually whatever sweetener they're using. It just comes out so strong a lot of the time.
[00:24:06] Melissa Traverse: Well, again, they're trying to mask that pea protein, which is very strong flavor.
[00:24:10] Ray Latif: I'm curious as to why Koya felt like they needed to use sort of made up names for the flavor as opposed to familiar ingredients. So as Melissa pointed out, they have a sour squeeze, a pink twist, and then a capri splash. I think one could deduce what the flavors might be based on the color of the can. Sour squeeze seems like lemon and lime. In fact, they do have lemons and limes in the can. Pink twist feels like a grapefruit flavor, but did I see a watermelon as well? Is that?
[00:24:36] John Craven: Yep. Yeah, it's a watermelon.
[00:24:38] Ray Latif: And the Capri Splash looks like it has some oranges on the can as well. But why not go straight forward? This feels like it's for a younger consumer perhaps, but.
[00:24:49] John Craven: I kind of like the fact that they invented a flavor. I can tell that it's something watermelon-y and lime-y just from the front of the can. I don't know. It seems like a fun time to drink a can of this.
[00:25:00] Ray Latif: Yeah, it definitely feels like it's skewing younger. Maybe that's where they're trying to go with this. But protein sodas in general, they haven't, as far as I can tell, really turned that corner yet. I think it's still very much in its infancy, a very nascent concept and idea. I'm wondering if maybe the next few months or next year we'll finally find out if this actually has legs. Because I haven't really seen or heard many people talk about or show a ton of interest David Protein sodas yet.
[00:25:27] John Craven: I think if the flavor could be dialed in just a little bit, I think there would be a lot more opportunity.
[00:25:33] Ray Latif: Other canned beverages by Mike's left arm. What is all that? Golden Disco? Drinking some Golden Disco, Ray. What's Golden Disco?
[00:25:40] Melissa Traverse: Founder came in on Friday. It is a better for you non-alcoholic crafted cocktail. Okay.
[00:25:47] John Craven: Those are gorgeous cans.
[00:25:48] Melissa Traverse: They are beautiful cans. They worked with a well-known design company on these. They've got, excuse my French here.
[00:25:56] Ray Latif: That's one flavor, right? One flavor. That wasn't Mike excusing.
[00:26:00] Melissa Traverse: My darling. Yeah.
[00:26:02] Ray Latif: He's about to drop some F-bombs. So that's supposed to be like a French 75, the Mai is the Mike and Mai tie.
[00:26:07] Melissa Traverse: And the Smokey Collins. And there are definitely riffs on those.
[00:26:10] Jeffrey Klineman: Yeah. I tried the excuse my French, which is nice and purple. The liquid that is.
[00:26:16] Ray Latif: Yeah, the French 75.
[00:26:17] Jeffrey Klineman: Yeah, and the Smokey Collins. I did not try the Mai Tai one yet. I really like the Smokey Collins.
[00:26:24] John Craven: Which one is this?
[00:26:25] Melissa Traverse: That's the Smokey Collins.
[00:26:26] John Craven: Yeah, I like it as well.
[00:26:27] Melissa Traverse: It's good. They're all tasty. They all have like that similarness that you want in a beverage. So they all taste like Golden Disco at the end of the day. And then it's just a different riff on what it should taste like. Yeah, I think she's done a good job with just, you know, making the can appealing. It definitely feels like it's a party drink. Definitely feels like it's, you know, for a good time. And you could definitely crush a few of these.
[00:26:50] John Craven: And let me point out, I can see from across the room here that it's 50 calories in a can. That's a good number. If you're avoiding alcohol or if you're trading alcoholic drinks for non-alcoholic, you don't necessarily want to go You know, like you want something that's a little conservative, but what a great job they did in making it sweet and, you know, delicious without a ton of sugar.
[00:27:13] Melissa Traverse: The can does feel like it's for an adult drinking occasion, so. I mean, maybe it looks a little bit like a non-alcoholic beer, but if I was gonna say anything about it that was even slightly negative, but I don't know. Overall, I think this is really well done. How many grams of sugar does that have? 11 for this one. That's the My Darling. It looks like they all have the same, which again, this one has 12. The Smoky Collins has 12. So formulaically, they're pretty similar.
[00:27:43] John Craven: You know, I'd like to point out between the beautiful Koya Protein Pop cans and the Golden Disco cans, it really is, of course, so important to design your product so it jumps off the shelf. Everyone should head over to Nombase.com and check out our education section. because we have a recently released course by none other than Fred Hart, who oftentimes comes to BevNetLive. So he did an entire course on how to design your packaging so that it jumps off the shelf. So definitely check that out.
[00:28:16] Jeffrey Klineman: Yeah. Why would anyone want that, Melissa?
[00:28:19] John Craven: I mean, you know, it seems like a waste of time.
[00:28:22] Ray Latif: Yeah, you don't need a good looking package. Oh my God. This is crazy. He just shares the secrets on how to create a great package design. Yeah, that is incredible. He drops so much knowledge.
[00:28:31] John Craven: He basically distills what Liquid Death did, what Banza Pasta did, into almost an equation that you can use yourself.
[00:28:39] Jeffrey Klineman: Also what I really like about Fred Hart, by the way, just a little anecdote here. It's when he does come to our events and someone is like, give me your opinion on my product. What should I do about the packaging? Do you know anyone? He's the tallest guy in the room pretty much. So he's easy to find and easy to be like. There's the guy you need to talk to right there.
[00:29:01] John Craven: And he's really good at looking at someone's packaging and saying, I would change this, this and this.
[00:29:07] Jeffrey Klineman: I mean, I'm always like, you don't need to hire Fred, but you should maybe. But also just his gut reaction is usually pretty spot on.
[00:29:15] Melissa Traverse: And his disposition is he's basically human sunshine. So he can totally be ripping your beverage apart, but you will never know it.
[00:29:24] Jeffrey Klineman: Also, I hope he gives us a good testimonial, because we just gave a Fred Hart testimonial.
[00:29:31] Ray Latif: Last but not least, congratulations to the team at Trip, the UK-based brand of mood-enhancing beverages. Daniel Khoury and Olivia Ferdy are the co-founders. They just welcomed a big-time celebrity influencer, I guess, just major known person on earth, Kendall Jenner, who has become the equity partner and ambassador. She's pretty well-known, isn't she? Yeah. It's just incredible that they were able to- Celebrity influencer better.
[00:30:04] Melissa Traverse: Just make it up words over here now. We got totally better for you. Technically better for you.
[00:30:09] Ray Latif: I don't even know how to describe Kendall Jenner at this point.
[00:30:12] John Craven: How about icon? Celebrity influencer. I think that's actually exactly what she said.
[00:30:15] Ray Latif: Entrepreneur.
[00:30:16] John Craven: Yeah.
[00:30:16] Ray Latif: Yeah. Icon? Icon, sure.
[00:30:19] John Craven: She's a celebrity because she's a celebrity.
[00:30:22] Ray Latif: Yes, she is a new shareholder and global ambassador for Trip. And once again, it's really exciting news for Daniel, Olivia, and the entire Trip team. We'll be talking to them about it at our Taste Radio London event on October 21st. If you want to learn more, if you want to attend, head to Taste Radio.com slash meetups. 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.
[00:31:34] John McKenna: you
