Welcome to our live show!

Afternoon happy hour with Adam Smith, our special guest, Neil Dressner with Raka Matcha. We'll get into that in just a second, but before we get started, we always take the time just to recognize our sponsors. So I want to recognize Alias Advising, Adam's company. They do everything operations. So if you're looking for like a co-packer, formulator, you know, a can, um, Even a Rock 'Em Matcha pack. You talk to Adam, which goes in that. So Adam has expertise, uh, and his company works with several companies across the, uh, the globe. Uh, certainly call Alicia Vargo, my partner at Bev Assets, as a sponsor. Uh, we do the commercial side of the business. We help brands find distribution and customers across North America and do commercial strategy. Uh, Rocks Advising, With Ryan Hellermann. Ryan hasn't been here lately. Ryan needs to start showing up and participating. We call him out every week, but Ryan has a heck of an organization that Adam and I are part of that basically has a bunch of different people, have a bunch of different experiences that they can help brands come to market. And then our sponsor at Freebird. Have you heard of Freebird, Neil?

I haven't seen it.

Yeah, this is like, as the word Freebird, it's a water. It started out in the Southeast. They just got into Walmart and growing very rapidly. But, uh, uh, Jay Williams is a sponsor here, so I do this so I can get free water. That's a great product, great story behind the brand. It's actually, if you think Freebird the song, yep, Lynyrd Skynyrd. It's all right there. He has the rights to the name, believe it or not, which just blows my mind every time I see it. So welcome.

Thank you.

So excited to have you.

Yeah, thank you.

We're gonna take the next 45 minutes or so just to talk about your journey. I can't even remember how we found each other, but I can tell you right now I'm on my second rocka matcha and I didn't follow the instructions. I'm putting more than a tablespoon in, so I'm a little A little fired up, so I'm going to slow it down a little bit and maybe not drink all my— I have a frozen one now. I had a warm one earlier, but super excited to have you here, Neil.

Yeah, we're excited about being here for sure.

Yeah. So tell us a little bit about yourself. Like, how did you— you know, I saw somewhere you're a banker, but you're also in the beverage business.

Yeah, actually, my by-day, right, the 9-to-5 part of my life is just an idiot banker, right? Like, I'm just one of those guys. Not quite a Wall Street Wally type. I still don't even fit into the banker architect, you know, so I get a lot of weird stares at me when I walk in the bank and I walk in, you know, with a backpack and my cap backwards. Still, I still kind of, you know, flip the bird to all those guys and, you know, they don't, they don't really bother me. So yeah, it's just been a crazy journey. It's just more so, you know, my father was a chef, my mom is Typical, you know, Spanish grandma from Venezuela, you know, was always in the kitchen cooking up stuff. My brother married a Puerto Rican girl that's a crazy cook. He's a crazy cook. So everybody's involved with food at some level, you know, and kind of, you know, I don't want to say foodie, that's an overused term, but, you know, just say conscious of good food. How's that? Um, good, good products, right? And, um, so from there it was just kind of a journey on You know, kind of a— it kind of goes back to like Honest Tea Guys, right? Um, Seth, right? The whole tea, that whole mission with the Honest Tea Guys where, you know, he's running in New York City and he goes to a bodega, you know, one of the little stores, and you're like, here's one shelf of water, here's a shelf of soda, and the other one was like Snapple, right? So you had soda, water, or 50 grams of sugar, right? Or even the juices at that point were shit. Orange juice, stuff like that, you know, all 50 grams. So what do you do? Like, what do you do? So that's where they kind of came up with the idea. I'd like to have a little bit of both or something that just makes sense, right? Something that tastes good. I don't want water today. I want a little something more satisfying, and I don't want to blow up with 50 grams of calories or, or, you know, 50 grams of sugar and 250 calories in my 12-ounce cup, or, or, you know. container. And, you know, that was kind of how that idea got hatched. You know, I later found something— I don't remember, it was called Sweet Leaf. I don't know what happened to them. They were sold at Publix here and in a couple of regional ones. We used to sell Sweet Leaf at my house. They had this kind of kitschy, weird label that looked like kind of hand-drawn, and it had, oh, my grandma made this tea, you know, in her— basically her pillowcase. I remember Grandma, and they had a picture of Grandma with like a pillowcase and You know, they did a good job. Good, good quality, you know, strained, like really brewed, really brewed tea, pure cane sugar. Some of the other things they had in there was, you know, it was a solid drink. And they had a green tea with citrus that, you know, I worked in a bank with like 500 people in this building, and like 40 of us were addicted to it. We would clean the shelves at Publix, and we were all reckoning it to basically like liquid crack. Well, one of us, me, wound up looking at the label and say, wow, it's 50-something grams of sugar. It is liquid crack, you know. So we wound up realizing it was literally liquid crack, but we still drank it.

This, this— I mean, I, I didn't— I usually put honey in my, um, matcha, and there's nothing in here, man. It's amazing.

Where's the honey? Honey, citrus, and, and monk fruit extract, a tiny bit.

Wow.

We can talk about—

You don't need anything else in this thing.

Yeah, we'll talk about the science of it later, but Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, so wind up going to that, right? And, and kind of saying, well, I want some— I like this taste, I love this flavor. So start experimenting with green tea, green tea leaves, sencha, different stuff. And then I was like, well, matcha— this is 4 years ago before matcha became super trendy. Like, this is probably 5 years ago, honestly. And, um, you know, I just started balancing and say, if green tea is good, this is the next iteration. where you can get it even purer and better and have more of a, you know, more of an impact to kind of—

What is matcha? Is matcha the leaf? Is it a ground-up leaf of green tea or what is it?

Correct. So matcha is a little bit, a lot different. It is Camellia sinensis. That's a Latin word for it, but it's different from so much as in terms of the harvesting, right? So your green teas, your black teas, your white teas, even coffee to an extent, are picked off the plant. Dried, then you're running hot water, you're extracting the ink, right? So now you're getting the ink, you're getting some catechins in there, you're getting your, you know, your dose of caffeine in there or something like that. But with the matcha, what they're running that, um, they'll take that in about 60 to 90 days before it's matured, they will run black tarps over it. So these are like, say, adolescent, ready to pop plants, ready to mature, and all of a sudden somebody's put black, you know, black tarp over it where it can't see the sun. And it's freaking and struggling looking for the sun. It's straining for sunlight. It doesn't have any sunlight because they tarped it. So what happens, it overproduces chlorophyll. It hyperproduces the chlorophyll, and that's when they start to pick it. They dry that out and basically kind of like caves out in the sun.

So that's what turns it green then?

Yeah, well, it's starting green, but this hyperproduces the green, right? So when you get that deep, deep vibrant green And you compare it to another matcha that's probably not that vibrant green, maybe a lower quality, maybe it's not sourced from Japan, it's probably not shaded. When it's shaded—

So the ceremonial blend that I got, that's why I get it, because it's like really green. It's like your hat green.

Yeah, if they're doing—

The color of the green and the thing.

Yeah, if they're doing ceremonial, they're using probably the best kind of farmland that they're allocating to that because they know it's going to produce. Think about your wine grapes, right? It's very similar, right? You're not going to run— you know, Ernest and Julio Gallo are not going to buy a hill in France that's producing $500 bottles to make their, you know, boxed wine, right? So highest and best use is kind of a banking term, but—

Keep on going, I'll be right back.

Highest and best use is really kind of what you would say, hey, this is the perfect pH, this is the volcanic nitrogen-rich soil, This would grow the best matcha. They shade it, that's when it turns dark green, and then they grind it in these granite stones and just pulverize it into a fine powder. And that's what you consume. And that's the difference between the green tea, black teas, and even the coffees is instead—

Is the matcha much better for you than regular green tea?

Correct. It's, it's similar, but I would say, I like to say it's like green tea on steroids, right? Because instead of just extracting the ink out of an oxidized leaf, you're pulverizing the entire leaf. So now the fibers, the chlorophyll, all the amino acids, which is L-theanine. I don't know if you guys notice, if you go to GNC or a health food place or any of those vitamin shop, whatever, now you're seeing this L-theanine extract. That extract is primarily taken from green tea and specifically the plants that derive matcha. So now they've extracted that as a sole single healthcare supplement.

Wow.

But your source of rich naturals is, is from it's from matcha. So the other piece of that is, you know, the caffeine benefits, different than hot or green or just plain liquid tea that's extracted through hot water process where it just hits you, you know, it just goes bam right into the veins, right? Like an IV.

Right.

You're still having to metabolize, even though the matcha is fine, it's ground up into a fine powder, you still have to metabolize that, right? So that means it takes over hours, like a slow release basically, right? So you're getting your caffeine instead of an espresso shot, you're getting a 2 to 3 hour cruise, and then you're kind of cycling down a little bit, you know, slowly where you don't have that crash. I don't know if you've noticed that, Sam, like you don't have that crash that maybe you were a big coffee drinker back in your, you know, former life. Yeah. And you, you know, sucking down those black coffees in the morning, you're getting that crash from the sugar and the black, you know, and the, you know, 60 to 65 milligram dose of caffeine you were getting. You're getting a quick bump, but then you're crashing. This is just a much smoother ride, and that's part of the health benefits on top of, you know, antioxidants and the chlorophyll that's shown. And I'd like to say some studies have shown that it can help be helpful in, you know, detox, some detox programs, because the chlorophyll in the plant is a big detoxer.

Wow, a lot, a lot of science here, Adam. I'm sure you have some questions because this is Well, we just lost Adam, so I scared him off. What happens when we go live? This is what happens sometimes. We come on the screen and go off the screen. Um, let me ask a couple questions actually. I put them out in the universe earlier today. Um, you know, why, why matcha? Why is my— you kind of talked about this. Why is matcha exploding right now? Like, what is— like, is it because it's just a much healthier option for people? They're looking for like Yeah, moving towards these functional drinks. Like, what, what is it about matcha that makes it kind of aesthetic?

Yeah, I think there's kind of like 2 things really, right? So you have people moving toward these functional benefits, just like an awareness in general, right? And people are saying— and then there's a ton of people that are just getting wrecked by coffee, right? They're kind of, you know, decaf coffee doesn't give them what they need, and then coffee gives them a little overstimulation. And, you know, they're in the office All of a sudden you're running around at 12:31. You're either tired from lunch or you're tired from your coffee crash. Yeah, people are looking at that. And in some cases, there's a lot of people that love coffee and they actually grind their own beans, or they grind their beans and they do a French press, right? They do that whole process, right? I think it's kind of like part of a ritual, right? It's, it's this whole ritual. I met you— when I met you the first time we spoke On a Zoom call, you were doing your matcha and you have your, like, ritual. You had your small spoon, you have your whisk. So, you know, a lot of what people do in coffee is a little bit depending on who you are. You're not just running through the drive-through at Starbucks or McDonald's, but some people like to do their own. They like to grind their beans. They like to do the—

You're talking about my wife. She goes to Starbucks every day, right? And I'm like, you have a freaking coffee machine and a grinder here. Just make your own coffee. And she won't do it. Well, maybe that's part of her—

maybe that's part of her ritual.

That's her ritual, Starbucks.

Sitting in front of 6 cars and sitting behind 3 cars while somebody leans out a window.

You know who our best friend is? You know who our best friend is?

Who?

The barista at Starbucks. We went there for Mother's Day and they're like, hi Susan, how are you? I'm like, I'm sure they love you, Susan, because we go there 2 or 3 times a day.

Right, right, right. No, it's true. But yeah, I mean, really, I think It's both, right? Like, people are aware of functional benefits. Caffeine is not that easy to manage for everybody. This gives you a way to kind of manage it into your diet, right?

Yeah.

And also there's a whole ritual behind it, right? There's this whole, I mean, I've heard and I've looked into this, it's like the ritual behind matcha goes back to like the samurai, right? Where they would like basically, you know, before they would have their whole bodysuits on, and do this ceremonial with the white bone china, the hot water, the whisk. They would do their ceremonial at like a little ceremony and then put on the headdress and go out and fight, you know.

So we're samurais, man. I'm a samurai.

Yeah, so this is like lore, like there's a whole bunch of lore behind it. But I think really, to answer you most direct, I think there's a balance, right? There's some functional health benefits that people wake up to, and also I think This ritual, people like the ritual. They like to whisk it with a little thing or get their frother and do all this stuff in the morning. It's kind of, I don't know, maybe you unplug for 10 minutes while you do it and, you know, it's, it's something that you look forward to. Or maybe you look forward to that new pack of matcha that you ordered online and this one's greener than the last one. Or, you know, I mean, you go in— people are buying coffee, right?

Yeah.

You go in a coffee shop, you know, wherever that is. You've got Kenyan, you got Hawaiian, you got the Jamaican, you got Costa Rican, you got the pure old good old Colombian, and, you know, all these other coffees, right? So everybody's like experimenting and they buy that bag and they're like, well, I wonder what this one's going to taste like, right?

Like, it's— Yeah, I mean, that's kind of— I did ceremonial. Like, if it's not the right green, I've gotten the one with not the right green, it's just not as appetizing, I guess, visually, right, for me. So let me— so building a functional beverage brand in a crowded market You consider matcha a functional beverage. You kind of said that, right?

I do.

What are you doing, you know, to bring your brand to market? Like, how are you separating yourself right now so people find you and know who you are?

Well, a couple of things, right? Other than grinding in farmers markets right now and banging on doors at local, like, specialty shops and just kind of embracing the crazy social, you know, social media world. Like, I have people helping me with that, right? Which is not always that much fun, but, you know, at least somebody can help me a little bit with that. We have a little, you know, team and a consultant that kind of helps. But, um, really, I think for sure you're in the beverage industry, and I don't know if you've seen another matcha concentrate, right, that's really a liquid concentrate.

No.

And there's not a ton of clean ingredient matcha beverages on the shelves. They are all steeped with some type of either ascorbic acid, sodium benzoate, or they've taken the route of pasteurizing it because it's a milk-based product. Most of it— most of everything in the store is like a milk-based product right now. Most of the matchas are lattes. I don't think I see anything out there that's a non-latte type matcha. Cap and bottle, you see them in a lot of like Whole Foods and a couple stores, but that's a latte-based drink, so they're using pasteurized milk. um, you know, sodium benzoate, ascorbic acid, or they're acidifying it, right? They're making it shelf stable, dropping the pH, right, under 4.3 or whatever it is, but they're diminishing the value and the health benefits of the matcha. If you acidify it, you know, matcha is a plant-based, you know, it's supposed to be plant-based, you know, benefits, right?

Yeah.

So that means you're on an alkaline, right? Your pH at 7.2, 7.4, 7.6, whatever it is, And that's where you get your health benefits, right, is from that alkaline plant-based diet, and in this case, a plant-based beverage, right? If you acidify that, you're kicking the shit out of the matcha. You're destroying, you know, a lot of the— half of the benefits. If you pasteurize it, you're also killing it. So that's why, going back to kind of the co-packing dilemma, you know, who was going to do a cold fill at low minimum quantities? And that we can get into that later, but, you know, that was a big part of it. But yeah, I think We're different and, you know, I think we're one of one in terms of who is putting out a clean ingredient, no natural flavors, no other flavors added, that's 7 clean ingredients, that doesn't have any preservatives or any artificials in it, and in a concentrate format in a biodegradable pouch. And my engineer tells me it's all fake science, and I talk to other packaging people, there's no way they can do that, but You know, my partner with— in the packaging is a company called TechPak Solutions in Canada. And if anybody wants to doubt it, they can go look at the white papers. They're all published on the site. And I don't know of another, um, freezable, liquid-holding, refrigeratable, biodegradable pouch for liquid.

I don't. And I think transparency and labeling, and I think the consumer's starting to get wise. And we've talked to a few people about what's in the stuff you consume. And, you know, we've had formulators on here, everything else. I mean, I think people inherently want to be healthier, right? So is that the market that you've seen and that's what you're going after? Like the better-for-you market?

That's exactly right. I mean, that's— I mean, we're totally upstream on all this shit. From everything we've done, we've— it's just opposite of everything that the way it should be done, right? Like, you know, not shelf-stable, it's got to be frozen, the logistical channel, you know, a lot of the stuff has to be sourced. Now all of a sudden, you know, 4 years ago, nobody was thinking about tariffs being an issue. Right now, organic honey, you know, most like, there's no meaningful supply of organic honey in the United States. All the organic honey is sourced from overseas, primarily Brazil, rainforest, stuff like that. Now they got a 30% tariff. Wow. Japan, we're friendly with, you know, so the tariff is not that bad. And you'll see other matchas popping up now. China has got a big supply of matcha. You see Korea. Korea is now providing matcha and supplying matcha. And even Vietnam. Vietnam now, I see Vietnam. I've talked to some people and they're just, they're not shading. It's the quality there. It's not there. I mean, if you're going to be in the game and you want a quality matcha, You really have to.

I mean, I never knew that they— I never knew how matcha was made. That was like new knowledge to me is, uh, oh wow. So, so where are you? So, you know, branding, retail growth, you know, where do you see the category headed? Like, what do you— what do you— what's next for matcha?

For matcha, I think it's becoming from niche— well, it started as a small niche. Now I think it's kind of boutique. And it's gaining more of a, you know, an acceptance. It's right behind— like, green tea is beyond like boutique now. Like, you go and Lipton's got a green tea product, you know, Golden Peak's got Pepsi's, they all got great tea products, right? Um, and now you see, of course, Dunkin' Donuts, you can go through, you can tell your wife to go through the drive-through at Dunkin' and get a matcha, or Starbucks, you can get a— you can drive through.

I'd probably say that probably That would be a mortgage payment, by the way.

Yeah, yeah. So for sure, you can— there's, you know, it's becoming mainstream, and you'll see some products on the shelves, you know, in some of the supermarkets. Again, all shelf-stabilized, so it's— you could argue all day long, but I would— my argument would be anything that's sitting there shelf-stable in terms of a matcha is definitely in some type of latte. And secondarily, it's diminished probably 70% of the benefits that you would get from it by acidifying it or pasteurizing it or putting in some other preservative. So, um, yeah, totally upstream on this for sure. It's, it's— but I, I think I see people waking up and wanting, wanting that. What's up, Adam?

Adam, I was gonna ask, so I— from, uh, can you guys hear me?

Yeah. We can hear you.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, yeah, we got you.

Okay, uh, in terms of, uh, of like just post-production supply chain, right? Like, okay, you keep it cold. Are you keeping it frozen and shipping it frozen? Are you keeping it refrigerated and shipping it refrigerated? How long is it good for if you keep it frozen?

Because, yeah, right, like frozen all the way through is your answer.

Right.

Frozen product in a freezer, it's got a 12-month expiration date. It's frozen, right? Once you thaw it out in the fridge, it'll last in that liquid concentrate state because we did shelf life studies and nutritional panel testing and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, the pouches are good for— refrigerated should be good for 2 to 3 weeks longer. Shelf life studies say almost 55, 60 days. But I like to say, you know, use within 7 to 10 days just to be safe. And honestly, if you pour it—

Sure.

Into a half a gallon, it's going to be gone, and it's, it's going to be gone in 3 days. You know, you're going to sip it, you won't be able to stop sipping it. It's just the way it is.

Right, right. Yeah, I, I asked because I think you're— I think you're right. I think you're both right. I think a lot of Even as the guy who works with a lot of shelf-stable canned RTDs, I think, you know, people are coming finally to the realization that like, yeah, 50, 60 years ago when, you know, TV dinners and kind of the big boom of packaged foods came around, like, yes, convenience and ease was obviously a big part of that. But, you know, nutritional density wasn't necessarily.

Right.

Right. Like, most nutrient-dense foods are the ones that are the freshest, are the ones that are going to go bad. That's kind of the whole fucking point from a food science perspective.

For sure.

But I talk to a lot of brand owners who are like, well, you know, I want it to be as nutrient-dense as possible. I'm like, great, you're going to have to cold chain it. They're like, well, I can't afford that. Correct. No, you cannot. Right. So, you know, you touched on it a little bit before we came on, but I'm curious, like, now as you look to grow, is it something where— I mean, you mentioned a little bit all of the struggles you went through finding a facility that would cold fill into a pouch, so on and so forth, right? Is it something where you guys are looking to grow with your existing facility for as long as you possibly can? Are you trying to develop secondary facilities to help spread your reach? Like, what does that growth of production facility look like?

I think, you know, and I've listened to some of your other podcasts, Sam, and there was one guy, I think he does the Carbonless or no, Carbless.

Carbless.

We always talk about him.

Yeah, yeah. So again, he's, he's like your case study, right? Like, he's like—

We're super fans of Adam. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's like Louis Leakey when you're talking about the, the missing link, right? Like, yeah. Uh, but now, like, yeah, we're in this hyper-local focus, right, Adam? So we're just trying to— like, I'm at farmers markets like 3 days a week just slinging this shit and doing individual drinks.

And we're sure— I mean, your brand just isn't magically just growing. You didn't— like, it just showed up, you made it, and people started buying it.

Yeah, yeah, it's funny.

Doesn't work that way.

No, not quite, man. Not quite. Yeah, so, you know, we're— and then we're doing that to show off the versatility, right? Like, we do that pouch, that concentrate, we pour it over fresh-squeezed lemonade and it does the cloud.

Are you next to the honey guy, by the way? You are, aren't you? The honey guy? Are you— you have a partnership with the honey guy at the farmer's market by chance?

Well, I know that and a mushroom guy. My guy's a— he's a microchemist and he does the tinctures. He does his own extraction.

Yeah.

He does. He's called Samurai Fungi. Shout out to John. Samurai Fungi has the best concentration 'cause he does test. He's a microchemist. I mean, this guy's a microbiologist. He does the testing and tincture in terms of ratio concentration. So he does, you know, sells the actual mushrooms, non-psylocybin of course, and non-psychedelics. And he does for food culinary, but he also does the extracts.

So, oh wow.

Yeah, it's a part we're talking about, like, down the road, and not too far down the road. I see RACA the product, but I also, you know, see a pre-workout version and a post-workout version.

Oh man, because you need to, you need to be talking to Adam, by the way. This is like Adam's world, by the way, Smith.

Well, we'll talk, Adam. So yeah, because there's a few things, even with the polyphenols, and part of what we have in here is this Grapefruit is one of the main citrus components. Grapefruit is one of the—

There's grapefruit in here?

In— it's grapefruit and orange is the citrus component.

Okay.

You're not on statins, are you?

What's that?

Nothing, I was just joking. Hopefully you're not taking statins.

I don't know, you know, the reason I'm swallowing this down is because I'm addicted to the grapefruit. That's what it was.

Okay, there you go.

You sucked me in.

So here you go. So that, Adam, for you, is 2 of the richest sources of polyphenols. Sure.

Are—

is grapefruit in the citrus world and matcha.

Okay.

So what it does is stacks these stacks polyphenols, and it really helps for— in terms of you— again, studies have shown that that can help you create a fat oxidation component in terms of drink. Way early stage to start.

So I'm losing weight while I'm drinking this?

Well, I mean, you could argue. Let's let's keep it simple. If you weren't drinking the milk-based one and you were drinking what I recommend that you do, I'm gonna do the gallon.

I'm doing a half a gallon.

Half a gallon. See, he goes back between half a gallon and gallon all the time. Yeah. You know, I'm gonna send you a half a gallon container and say put it in here.

Okay? Okay. Send me the instructions. Put a Sharpie. You know, you'll be texting me. Okay, are you gonna be home? Because this has to you. Special delivery.

Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. But anyway, so let's, let's say that you're doing a cup, right? 12-ounce cup over ice, that's 10 calories. So that's loading you with about 50 milligrams plus your stock, 50 milligrams of caffeine plus you're stacking the polyphenols. You could argue, you could argue in a responsible diet, right, that that could be considered an aid to weight loss. Could be. In a responsible diet, you can make that argument. That's all I'm gonna say.

Good. I got one week for the wedding to get prepared for it, so.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, I, you know, even maybe you find your local meth dealer for that if you want to lose weight.

I got my, uh, I got my, uh, what do you call it, the, the, my special suit, uh, is what you call you wear in the summer. It's, um—

Oh, sweatsuits, like the rubber suits?

No, for, no, for my wedding, it's a suit.

It's, um, A tuxedo?

No, I'm not wearing a tux. It's, um, it's like a summer— it's a suit. It's like tan. What do you call it? The flannel? Um, flannel prison?

A prison jumpsuit? What are you wearing? Is it orange?

No, it's brown. It's a tan suit. Okay, I'll think of it in a second.

So you're wearing like a linen suit?

A linen suit, yes. Thank you. Yeah, I'm doing a linen with a vest with a brown tie.

Okay, okay.

Um, after the wedding, so more, more Okay, you gotta send me—

you gotta send me pictures, Sam. I've never seen you in anything other than— the fanciest thing I've seen you in is a golf polo when we met up at the, uh, the PGA event that time.

All right, I'll, I'll take pictures. We're gonna be— yeah, you can come down, maybe come down and party with us. I'll just invite you in. You've been my special guest.

I'll crash the wedding.

Wedding crasher, I like it.

100%.

Oh, that's funny.

Yeah, somewhere in your neighborhood actually. I'll text you where it's at. So please, free drinks, man.

So, Neil, uh, I'm, I'm— you've mentioned a few members of the team, right? You mentioned, you know, the packaging engineer in Canada, you mentioned the, uh, the microchemist. Like, how long did it take— let me, let me start with a simple question— how long did it take you to have enough conversations with enough people to feel like, okay, like, I have all the the members of the team identified were ready to do this? Because I can't imagine it happened quickly.

Oh, it took months. It took months because, I mean, when, when, you know, the guy who's now engineering and, and, uh, consulting for me, he was the COO of a full-on Coman manufacturing plant in Daytona. He wound up— they wound up closing that. He retired. But we had built a good relationship, and I circled back to him because I couldn't find any I couldn't find a facility to support Copac.

Yep.

And I asked him, what are you doing? He says, I'm retired. And, um, you know, he said, you know, we just started talking. And I said, can you help me? He said, all right, you know, we'll cut a deal, right? We'll do 12 months until we find a co-man. If we cannot, the fork in the road is we can try to build something low-key, low-tech, but automated. We, we can work with everything. I have an organic consultant, so he's helped me get the, you know, we're organically certified co-man. Um, and we built it from scratch. I mean, me and my boys, you know, a lot of, a lot of my, my buddy here is a GC, you know. Um, so we just wound up— and I've been in around construction most of my life— so we just built it, you know, scratch, you know, built the walls, built the ceilings, built, you know, just everything from scratch, right? So we got a nice clean facility that pumps out, you know, maybe 3,000 or 4,000 units a day on Pouchville. So, you know, we can low-key, hyper-focused, local, winning one market at a time, winning work in the stores. I came back today, as a matter of fact, um, right before I jumped on here, I was at a really— there's a real crazy Tex-Mex place here. It's a hot spot at the beach. Like, it's where— it's the spot where everybody goes. It's packed. So I was like, man, you know what, they have a really cool drink there called a Dirty Ashtray. Tecate or Modelo beer. Don't pop the— don't pop the can, right? You pour in pepper, lemon juice or lime juice, and, um, uh, Cholula, and it all mixes up. It looks like the bottom of a dirty ashtray, but you pop it and it's like a michelada.

Yes.

Unbelievable. And they do some cool stuff there with like muddled blackberries and jalapeño, uh, tequila, you know, margaritas. So I'm talking to GM, and I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna bring some stuff to you. So I brought him a whole bunch of pouches and a gallon of cold mix, gave it to all the waitresses, and so now they want to bring it in as food service. They want to put it on the menu and offer a virgin version, a jalapeño version, jalapeño and matcha version, and just go wild with it. I talked. I was over there today. He says, yeah, the bartenders are all messing around with it. So I got an appointment Tuesday. And I'll be bringing institutional-size packs of 8 or 16 ounces so they can mix it and they'll, they'll be serving it.

You should, Adam, you should introduce him to Michael Levinson, Food Service.

I was just thinking that.

Yeah. You should make an introduction because it's like places people often don't go, but there's so much opportunity that Mike could probably help you. And he'll, he'll tell you if your baby's ugly or not. That's what I love about him.

He's going to tell you what it's going to take. That's good. That's really good.

Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, nobody— I mean, kudos to you, Neil. Like, Sam and I go through this all the time. Like, nobody— I've had this conversation twice just today— nobody ever considers on-premise as like a good option, right? Everyone's like, oh, I gotta, I gotta sell in, in grocery stores, I gotta sell in Publix, selling— yeah, I gotta sell in GNCs, I gotta sell and so on. And I'm like, what about bars, restaurants, gyms, music festivals? They're like, why?

Why did they not look at their margins, Adam? Do they not? Fucking thank you.

This is the banker in you coming out because nobody thinks about the margins.

Yeah, the margins are way better if you could sell a bulk barrel that costs the same amount to produce one unit of 4 or one unit of 16-ounce and you're selling it at a sick margin.

Yeah, yeah, they could put that on the gun too, right? They could do like, uh, you could put it like where they could deliver it on the gun too, like that.

My boy— I'll give another shout out— my boy Scott has a restaurant up in Lowell, Massachusetts called Cobblestones. He had one in Chelmsford and he closed that and he has one Cobblestones. But, and, uh, what he would do, I would send him packs together in New York. He settled up there and, um, he would, he would keg it. He would keg it. He had a virgin version and like 2 alcoholic versions, and it was so informal. He would just take a like a string in a cardboard and say Neely's Swamp Tea, and that's what it was. And he would just pump it out of the, out of the keg, and he'd do different versions. So when I went up there one time, they're like, oh, you're Neely, holy shit, like people like want to know where this stuff is or where to get it. But we weren't ready at that point, so, you know, it was just kind of a boutiquey thing we could do, you know.

That's amazing.

Yeah, it fits for food service for sure. I think, you know, it would fit. Um, you know, so that's what I'm doing. I'm reaching out to GMs at restaurants, um, you know, restaurants that I think have volume that would fit that kind of profile. Um, and one for sure wants it, you know, we'll seal the deal hopefully Tuesday. And then I'm just working with other— I find like some regional 6 to 8 store chains would be perfect for where we are. Like, we couldn't produce—

Yeah.

You know, we couldn't do a nationwide chain right now, right? But we could do a regional for sure.

Hey, man, you know, a few years from now, you'll be the next Sam Adams of matcha tea. Sam Adams, I was researching this for my article I wrote today. And, you know, his first year he got was in 30 accounts. That's it. Or Tito's Beverage. I mean, his first year he did 1,000 9-liter cases and he didn't make money until his 8th year.

Yeah.

And BuzzBall was actually founded by a lady named Liz, and I think she wrote her thesis, and it took her 2 decades to get where she's at now. She sold to Sazerac for a lot of money, but it's a long path. But, you know, talking to you, you have— you definitely are clear in what you're about, your product, about your brand, what you want to be, which is tremendous. I do want to— we have a few more minutes. I want to kind of change course a little bit and let Adam Ask the most important question we ask everybody here. Because then we can get into some other things maybe that we didn't share that you want to share. But you want to ask the question, Adam?

Yeah. So the million-dollar question that we ask everybody is, what's the difference between success and failure?

Good question. I think we— for us, success is to prove where we are. we're hyper-focused on local, hyper-local. If we can't win in our backyard, then we got no shot, right? So I think, I think it's just right now what we're doing right here is going to be what we prove out. Because if people in Jacksonville, which is known to be a little rednecky, let's just say, um, you know, no offense to my people here, you know, but that translates to California, it translates to San Francisco, translates to New York, DC, Austin, you know, some of the other markets that— Boise, Idaho, whatever. But success would be to win right here, right here in his backyard, you know. And there's one local market, I won't say its name, but, you know, I shop there kind of regular, you know. They have a great shrimp special on Saturdays, ridiculous. And I know the owner and the GM, and they're always like, you know, we're busy, we other, you know, we have all these vendors coming in. I'm like, look, man, this is my backyard. I said, there's no way my product is not going in your store. So you can ignore me or, you know, tell me call you or line up an appointment, which I can never get, but it's going in your store. In fact, I told the guys, Adam, you might like this, that we wound up wrapping a freezer. So I get those 2x2, uh, little ice cream freezers with the slide glass. I got like 10 of them in my garage.

Uh-huh.

So we've learned how to wrap them ourselves, and I'll wrap them. And I said, listen, I don't even want your shelf space, right? I don't need your shelf space. Just give me a corner, kind of like the Hippo Pops and some of these other milky things. You see these little freezers. I said, I'll get— I'll bring you my display, I'll support it, I'll provide you with the sell-through, all that help. We'll do demos, we'll do sampling, and I'm not even— I don't even ask you for your shelf space because You know, I think, you know, some of that success question you asked is, you know, I see part of that answer as being, being able to build a good little business without UNFI or Cahie having to be my partner.

Yeah, I think— I mean, really, to connect them to Mike, I think there could be an interesting conversation. I also like the fact that you're building your backyard. I also like the fact is if you can't be successful in your own market, You can't be successful anywhere else. That's proof of concept that we've learned from different people have said, hey, you got to prove that your brand works where you're at. You know, get that reorder, build that velocity, get into that drink. Everything you're doing is the things that founders should listen to and follow. Let me ask you this. Is there anything that we discussed today? I mean, we went pretty quick here on our happy hour, which we often do. Sorry, that we didn't cover today. Do you want to make sure that everybody in the audience knows a little bit about Rockamatcha, you, anything that you want to convey?

Other than, you know, we're kind of building the whole pitch deck and, you know, we're, we're getting to that stage. We got to talk to investors because, you know, we just talked about that next level is definitely going to be where we go in hyperlocal to regional. We're going to have to build our production a little bit. Um, secondarily, I need— we need a bigger— we need to change the pouch a little bit fundamentally. It'll still be the biodegradable pouch because that is a one-of-one item and there is a little bit of a moat around that regardless of— it is a huge component of cost of goods, which kind of sucks, but it is, it is what it is. It's, it's worth it. And, um, and we believe in that, um, you know, big, big time. And, uh, you know. We're going to need to move to that spouted because it, in the end, and I'll circle back to this, right? So, Adam, so the question is, and really for you too, Sam, is, and the key question is, is everybody wants healthy and good, but we talk about, you know, nutrient-rich being, you know, cold vegetables, local stuff like that. The key question is going to come down to are they willing to, um, put in a little bit more effort around it, right? Like, are they willing to pay a little bit more, or are they just talking, right? Or do they really want the products delivered?

Mm-hmm.

They really want to do— I mean, there's people— we have a local delivery service, right, that does local, local source farms, 50— I think it's a 50-mile radius or a 75-mile radius. It's good. Of course, it's a little bit more expensive, but if you're committed to that idea of lowering your carbon footprint and You want locally harvested foods that are super fresh, that's what you get. You get a farmer's basket or a rancher's basket. It's a great little company, localfairjacks.com. They have 30 trucks, 6,000 subscribers, and we're distributed through them. They do a great job, right? Compostable bags they wrap the vegetables in, local artisans, only clean products. If you're ordering from them, you're You know you're getting something clean. It's great. But are really are people really willing to do that, Adam? Are people willing to spend 15-20% premium when shit is already out of control price-wise? You know, are they willing to maintain this? You know, a frozen drink because it doesn't have preservatives in it or whatever the case may be. Are people really willing to make that extra step and that commitment to say, "Hey, I want it." But I'm willing to do X, Y, or Z to get that. You know, I think it depends on the occasion, the product. Sure.

The category. And I, you know, someone said this, some of it was on the podcast, but Stephen Cho, it wasn't on this podcast, but he's an ex-Apple guy that my son's doing some work with. And he said, my friends don't buy products, they buy experiences. So if it's the experience of rock, a matcha, or an item, I don't think price matters. I think it's about the experience.

So can I jump my wholesale price?

Okay, maybe. I don't know, it depends. I mean, we get into that too. It just depends on the category and the brand. And, you know, it also— that's an interesting statement. I think it depends on the location, right? So if you're in the airplane or the airport, you're going to pay for the $8 water. You're in the grocery store, you're gonna pay $2 for it, you know. So it just depends on the time and the location and what you're willing to pay for it. So not every channel— like, look, you're going to pay more for a wine on-premise, right? Yeah, you're gonna pay $14 for a glass. You could go buy that same bottle for $14 in the grocery store.

Yeah. Oh yeah, it's within context. There's contextual piece to that for sure.

Yeah.

Well, great. I was just gonna say, I mean, I think, I think you're approaching it in a beautiful way, both between the product and the packaging and just owning your own backyard. But long story short, I'll try not to ramble. It's the end of my day, so I'm prone to it. But the— do I think there's a world 5, 10 years in the future where, you know, products like yours or others where people like, that's what having every day, multiple times a day? Maybe, right? But do I think that there's for sure a use case right now of, you know, hey, this is my— even if they're not willing to spend that 15 to 20% every day, they're willing to spend it for, hey, I treat myself every Friday, right? I treat myself on Saturday mornings, or, you know, I— whatever it is, right? I think people are willing to do that. But the flip side of that is You as the brand owner have proven that you're willing to go through the slings and arrows and the hurdles and all the bullshit to get them something that fits that, that is in a biodegradable packaging, that is nutrient dense, that is so on and so forth. Because so many of the people Sam and I talked to are like, I want it to be Whole Foods approved, I want it to be organic, I want it to be this. I'm like, cool, can you afford to get all that spun up? They're like, well, no, but I still want to do it. Okay, I don't give a fuck, right? Like, it's gonna cost what it's gonna cost, right?

Yeah, right. Yeah, organic certification is not fun. No, I can tell you that.

No, hard.

Like, the FDA registration was easy to dealing with the state Department of Agriculture, but the organic cert was— yes, was, uh, was a lot. That was tough, man. I mean, I thank God I found a good consultant, and he actually is an active inspector. He's an active inspector and he has a sideline, whatever. So we've had occasions where the inspector comes in And my guy's there. He'll come in from Tampa and they're like, hey, who's buying donuts next week when we go out to such and such? Like, they're actively working together. So, and he's, he's, you know, he's the dude, man. Like, he knows, very, very sharp, very, very up to date. He's awesome.

And I know we're going to run out of time, but that's who you need. Like, I talked to brands for like, well, I want to get organic certified. I'm like, guys, A, there's costs involved. B, you're going to need to hire an entirely separate body from me to walk you through that in full, because that in and of itself is an entire job, right? Yeah.

Anyway, yeah, it's a whole thing.

I've rambled enough at the end of this.

Yeah, no, for sure. That's, you know, I recommend him in through that community that I connected you with, Sam. Startup CPG, if you guys listen, man.

Oh yeah, I need to, I need to do that. I'll follow back up with you next week or over the weekend.

It's an, it's a, it's a community, um, that I came across on LinkedIn, which links you to their website. Yeah, website startupcpj.com. Then you sign up and they link you to—

Shout out to Daniel Sharf.

Yeah, he's—

You guys are the cool guys. I'm, I'm so far behind.

If you're on there, Adam, are you on there regular? It's, it's like a sick rabbit hole.

I'm not on there as often as I should be. I know.

Yeah, it's, it's an insane rabbit hole.

I know Daniel from, uh, Daniel used to be the, uh, He used to be the CEO of an energy drink called Machu Picchu, and he and I met then when Startup was only like 8,000 people, and now it's at like 35,000 or some crazy shit.

I'm telling you, if any founders listen to this, I can't recommend enough. First thing you should do, you know, and of course you got to meter your time because it is a rabbit hole. It's very— 30,000 people that are active, so some people are really active. Yeah. Um, so yeah, if you need help sourcing, you just need to talk to somebody. You know, you have threads for finance and ops and marketing and stuff like that. I mean, it is incredible, a vibe of a community with 30,000 people that any one of them seems to be willing to just drop and help anybody with anything. Amazing, amazing community.

Well, that's a, that's a great call out. I do have to wrap up things. I apologize.

Sure.

The two of you, thank you for everybody for joining. Uh, Rockamatcha, I've been flashing on the screen, you can find him, you type this in, it will pop up, uh, by the way. Uh, and then obviously, uh, Neil Dressner, you can find him on LinkedIn as well, and his company Rockamatcha is on LinkedIn as well because I tagged you both today, or DrinkUp did, for our podcast. Adam, thank you for joining us. Neil, thank you. Uh, for joining us today. Um, everybody, thanks for this happy hour. We'll be live, raw, and real tomorrow morning at 9:30 AM sharp Central Standard Time, and we'll see you on Saturday.

All right, thank you guys. It's a pleasure. Adam, connecting. Sam, we'll talk again soon.

Yeah, remain on the line, don't hang up.