CPG Week: BevNET Live Teaser

[00:00:05] Monica Watrous: Welcome to the CPG Week podcast by BevNET and Nosh, your source for the latest food and beverage industry news. I'm Monica Watrous, Managing Editor of Nosh, here with my co-hosts, Brad Avery and Lukas Southard. If you're enjoying the show, please subscribe on your listening platform of choice. This episode is dropping on day one of Nosh Live. If you are listening, you can tune into the live stream and catch the sessions. Or if you're an insider, you can watch on demand. And then coming up next week is BevNET Live. Lucas, what are you looking forward to?

[00:00:38] Brad Avery: BevNET's always a ton of fun. It'll be great to be coming off of Nosh Live, which is set to be quite a list of great presenters and some really good talks I'm looking forward to at Nosh. At BevNET, I'm going to be hosting a Q&A with Steven Jaber, who is the director of wholesale department at Spex, which is a Texas-based retailer of wine and spirits. And he's going to be talking to me about Spex's interest and increasing emphasis on their hemp-derived Delta 9 THC beverage offerings. So should be a really nice conversation with Steven about why Spex is really going all in on can of bevs.

[00:01:24] Lukas Southard: On the last day of BevNET Live on December 10th, I'll be leading a pretty cool session with Hunter Thurman. He's the CEO of a data firm called Alpha Diver. And what they do is they use a psychological method to track how consumers perceive different brands. And he's going to be discussing how brands can get from what he calls no man's land of just sort of existing to becoming that engagement management driving and sales driving brand that you want to be. So his method is pretty unique in that he's talking to consumers behind the scenes to get an understanding of how they perceive companies on a psychological basis and sort of building a profile of the consumers that gravitate towards certain brands that are successful and what they can do to keep consumers engaged online, whether that's through their social media or through sweepstakes marketing or just through the product innovation itself. I thought it was a really interesting discussion that I had with him in order to prep for this session. And I'm really looking forward to being able to talk to him more on stage and get a little deeper into what he is doing with working with companies.

[00:02:31] Brad Avery: Monica, I know you're going to be coming off of Nosh Live, which will be your first time heading that specific conference. And you don't have a whole lot to do at BevNET Live, but I'm sure there's some things that you're looking forward to. What about for you in the BevNET Live side?

[00:02:47] Monica Watrous: I'm really excited to see all of the speakers. We've got Madeline Hayden from Nut Pods, Craig Dubitsky from Happy, Ben White from Recess, and Rosa Lee from Wild Wonder, among many others. It's just a really great slate of speakers. My favorite part of the conference is the New Beverage Showdown. I love seeing the pitches and of course sampling all of the products. I think that's my favorite part of attending BevNET too, is just drinking so many different beverages that I haven't had access to before, or sample fridges are full of innovation. So yeah, I'm just really looking forward to being with the team, you know, being based in Kansas City, I never get to see you guys. So I think it's going to be a fun few days and Marina Del.

[00:03:33] Lukas Southard: I think if you're watching from home too, there's some really cool sessions throughout both days of the event. On day one, there's one that I'm really looking forward to, which is Inside TikTok Shop, where we have their head of food and beverage talk more about how are brands utilizing this platform. Obviously, TikTok has taken over everything in the past few years. So that's one I am very curious to hear more about. I also think that there's another good session on day one that's a pretty large panel, state of the market operators and investors talking about their growth opportunities and challenges. And there's some founders from Wild Wonder and Basemakers and also some investors on that panel. Melissa Dolan, the director of Emil Capital Partners is there. It's something that is so fundamental, and I think people will both get a lot out of it. And I'm also looking forward to seeing what they say and learning more. We're out there for a full week. Lucas, you were talking earlier before we started recording, you're looking at getting a tattoo while we're out in California?

[00:04:37] Brad Avery: It's undecided at the moment. My brother lives in Los Angeles, so I'm going to spend our day off on Saturday with him. And I offered maybe we'd get tattoos together. Nothing serious. I've got quite a few tattoos, so it's not new terrain for me, but new terrain for him. Where are you looking? Probably at the back of the leg. I got a lot of space in my back. And, you know, we're going to be in on the Venice area. There's a lot of tattoo shops. I'm hoping to just walk in and get something silly like a I suggested maybe like a Ninja Turtle on a unicycle, and my brother was like, yeah, that sounds like something I could get.

[00:05:11] Lukas Southard: I think you should get the CPG Week logo. I think your brother should as well.

[00:05:17] Brad Avery: I think we have to, like, do a full year of recording CBG Week before I get it tattooed on my body. But maybe next year? We're almost there.

[00:05:25] Lukas Southard: You know what? The back of your leg's too small. Like, you need, like, all your back dedicated to that, like, huge, like, when you go to the beach.

[00:05:31] Brad Avery: On the one-year anniversary, I'll get my whole back CBG Week tattooed with a big waffle. All right. Everyone heard it here.

[00:05:39] Monica Watrous: Definitely holding you to that. I'm excited to go to Erewhon. That's like my number one goal for the weekend. Oh, can I go with you? Of course.

[00:05:47] Brad Avery: I've still never been. And I know, I know I was going to go last year and I just didn't, I couldn't fit it in. I actually asked if my brother wanted to go and he was like over my dead body. So, uh, you could go with your brother.

[00:05:58] Monica Watrous: You come with me to Erewhon.

[00:05:59] Brad Avery: Sounds good. We'll make the pilgrimage. Yeah.

[00:06:01] Monica Watrous: Brad, you can come too.

[00:06:02] Brad Avery: Yeah. I want the Haley Bieber. That's what I want.

[00:06:07] Monica Watrous: Oh God. $30 smoothie.

[00:06:09] Brad Avery: I'm doing it. If I'm going to be there, I got to do it. I got to get the smoothie. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. I want to get the one with like a collagen and all the, all the like weird stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Give me all the weird stuff.

[00:06:20] Lukas Southard: And if you're listening and you are attending the event, come say hi. We're all going to be here the entire time. So please come say hello. We would love to meet you.

[00:06:29] Monica Watrous: Absolutely. That wraps up this edition of CPG Week by Bevhnet and Nosh. Looking forward to seeing everyone in LA and please tune into the live stream if you can't make it this year. That wraps up this edition of CPG Week by Bevhnet 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.