CPG Week Podcast: A Sneak Peek At Nosh Live & BevNET Live

[00:00:05] Monica Watrous: Welcome to the CPG Week podcast by BevNET and Nosh. I'm Monica Watrous, here with my co-host, Lukas Southard. We're recording this episode early because it is slated to drop on day one of Nosh Live. And we wanted to give you a little sneak peek of what to expect, whether you are joining us in Marina Del Rey or tuning into the live stream. We are kicking off Nosh Live with Jeff Rubenstein, the CEO of Cloud Foods and a special guest. who will share how to build the foundations of hyper growth. Because if anyone understands the velocity of modern brand building, it's a team moving at Khloe Kardashian level speed. Then we'll zoom out for a clear eyed look at the state of food investing, where our panel of investors will break down what's really driving decisions in 2026 and beyond. Innovation, resilience, and reinvention will continue with Jenny Britton, whose career has shown that a founder's intuition is often their greatest competitive advantage. Throughout the morning, we will explore breakout growth stories, listen to elevator talks live on stage, and reveal the Nosh Best of 2025 award winners, including our Person of the Year and Brand of the Year. After lunch, we will dive back in with discussions on retailer decision-making, venture capital values, the leap from regional to national, and the art and strategy behind great collaborations. We will return on day two for the Nosh Live Pitch Slam, featuring six startups with breakthrough products. And we will also catch up with the lead director of grocery and healthy consumables at CVS to mystify the drugstore channel. Morgan Zanotti of Primal Kitchen will join us for a candid conversation on building and selling a brand without regret. We'll close with lessons in managing complexity, reflections on the return of Justin's back-to-private ownership, and a spicy sit-down with the founder and curator of Heatnest. All that and more, and we hope to see you in Marina Del Rey. Now, Lucas, you will not be at Nosh Live, but you are going to be front and center at BevNET Live, which is happening next week. Can you tell us what you're anticipating?

[00:02:11] Lukas Southard: Yes, Monica, you're correct. I will not be at Nosh Live, but I will be at BevNET Live, which will be hopefully as exciting. At BevNET Live, we will be starting on Sunday afternoon with our normal beverage school, bringing some beverage industry stakeholders up on stage to walk new founders and entrepreneurs to the space. about everything from finance to FDA regulations, sales strategy, brand design, we cover it all. After beverage school, we'll be moving on to talk about cannabis beverages with BevNET Managing Editor, Martín Caballero, and he will follow his two sections with our spirits unit, which will be hosted by our spirits editor, Ferron Salniker. Moving into Monday, we've got a full day planned of many different founders and panelists talking about really everything you can imagine in the beverage industry. We'll be starting the day off with a special presentation from Allison Ellsworth of Poppy. And then we'll also be talking to some of the chief executives in HealthAid, as well as their new owner, Generous Brands. After lunch, I will be hosting one of the panels focused on functional beverages. I'm talking with Michael Brandt, who's co-founder and CEO of Ketone IQ, as well as Jordan Bass, who is co-founder and CEO of Hopwater, and Kyle Watson, who's the chief brand officer at Celsius. And we're going to discuss a variety of topics surrounding finding your positioning and establishing a core audience of consumers within functional beverages. and then how to use that momentum to grow into a competitor brand. At the end of the day on Monday, we will be coming back to hemp beverages, seeing as there's been a lot of news in that category recently. Marty will be hosting a panel to close out the day, discussing kind of where hemp beverages go from here after the congressional spending bill has put a timeline on how long those beverages can be sold. Moving into Tuesday's presentations, we will be starting the day off with another panel that I will be hosting. This is with Infra, which is one of the country's largest buying collectives. They're going to do a small presentation and then I will be talking to the category manager there and the director of member programs about what a buying collective is and why this is kind of unique, but also allows for smaller independent retailers to compete. Later in the day, we'll be talking to Suja, who also just announced an IPO. So that will be an interesting conversation that Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Klineman will be hosting. Closing out the day, we will obviously be doing our finals of the New Beverage Showdown, which is always exciting. Get to see all these new beverage brands that will be hitting the market. Also on Tuesday, Jeff will be talking to Spindrift founder Bill Krillman, and we will also be covering the adult non-alcoholic category with a panel that includes the CEO and founder of Kinuforix, Jen Batchelor, with Brandon Yan, partner at Conviviality Ventures.

[00:05:38] Monica Watrous: Sounds like a solid lineup.

[00:05:40] Lukas Southard: Yeah, it's going to be exciting. Obviously, BevNET Live is a slightly bigger event. So it can feel like a lot because there's so many people there. But at the same time, I think we like to cover a lot of ground. And I'll be sad to miss Nosh Live because I do like how it is a slightly more intimate event. And obviously, there's always a lot of great food too.

[00:06:01] Monica Watrous: Yeah, I was just thinking, I'm sad that I'm not going to try all these fun new beverages that you can find in all the coolers at BevNET Live.

[00:06:09] Lukas Southard: The bathrooms get really packed at BevNET Live. You know, there's just people, there's just a lot of liquid going through the system there. Yeah.

[00:06:16] Monica Watrous: Well, whether we see you in Marina Del Rey or you tune in to our live streams, we hope that you glean all of the insights and inspiration from Nosh Live and BevNET Live. And we look forward to catching up with you on the latest food and beverage industry news next week. That wraps up this edition of CPG Week by BevNET and Nosh. Thank you to our audio engineer, Joshua Pratt, our director is Mike Schneider, and our designer is Aaron Willette. If you enjoyed the podcast, please subscribe on your listening platform of choice, and we will see you next time.