Pitch Slam 12 - Semi-finals : Red Belly Honey & Rbel Bee Sweets

Speaker 1 [00:13] All right, up next, we have Jolene Rivera, who's the founder of Red Belly Honey and Rebel Bee Sweets. How are you? Anyone you want to take and please keep an eye on your timer.

Jolene Rivera [00:28] Hi everyone, I'm Jolene Rivera, the founder of Eat Your Greens, also known as Red Belly Honey. In 2014, I was training for a triathlon. The harder I trained, the worse I felt. My, I was gaining weight, my body was inflamed, and I felt ill. I saw four different doctors who accused me of not being honest about how much I was exercising and what I was eating. Then I met Doctor Paul Severage, a 25 year MD and integrated medicine specialist. He not only told me he would believe me, he told me he was going to help me, and he did. My blood test showed extreme inflammation and insulin resistance. I was well on my way to type 2 diabetes, like many in my Hispanic family. Instead of recommending an OTC or a pharmaceutical, he wrote me a food prescription. That was the day I learned that food is medicine. And I, I reversed my insulin resistance. I dropped 20 pounds of body fat. When I wanted sweets, I turned to honey. It's a functional food. It's sweeter than sugar, so you need less of it. It's anti-inflammatory, antiviral, and antibacterial. And then in 2019, I learned about a unique process where bees could add the CBD compounds from hemp to honey, doubling the anti-inflammatory benefits and also helping to reduce pain and anxiety, like right now. I was so in awe of this process, I knew I had to bring it to market and redbelly honey was born. It's the only honey in the world infused with CBD from hemp by honey bees. I often say, I know there's CBD in our honey, but I didn't put it there. The bees did. It tastes incredible. Food and Wine gave us food pick of 2020. Organic Insider called us the most efficacious food product they've ever eaten, and then I created. Bee gummies made with functional ingredients like CBD, honey, passion fruit, citrus, blueberries, and cayenne, no refined sugar, no corn syrup, no artificial flavors or colors. I wanted my sweets. I just needed them to do more for me than satisfy a sweet craving. Eat your greens makes that possible without the guilt. I still see and work with Doctor Savage. He endorsed redbelly honey, and he sells it in his office today. Thank you.

Speaker 1 [02:31] Hold on. Well done. All right, red belly honey. Um, interesting concept for sure. You've got, uh, CBD, uh, infused honey, but it's from the bees themselves. Jason, what do you think of this concept?

Speaker 3 [02:47] Well, it took me a little bit to kind of grasp, which is always a challenge for a brand and I think that, um, if you have to kind of Google to learn more about a product, there's a problem. And, uh, I think, you know, this whole idea of the bees kind of infusing it, you could really play with that and have some fun with it, you know, um, I don't know if that's the kind of brand you're trying to build, but. But find a way to make it so that it's clear to somebody so that they know exactly what it is, um, without having to Google it. So that was the first thing. And the second thing from a branding perspective is when I picked up the two different products, at first I didn't know they were from the same company. So you, you really have to build a brand that bridges the different products or maybe that was by design, but, um, um, you know, you gotta figure out what this brand really is and how you communicate that and then be consistent in different against, excuse me, across the products.

Speaker 1 [03:40] Uh, Adrian, you had mentioned, uh, the packaging is something you took note of, uh, when you were in the sampling room, um, in terms of sort of that, uh, that way of introducing yourself or introducing the brand to you, um, talk about that, talk about that experience.

Speaker 4 [03:55] Yeah, definitely, um, like Jason had mentioned, we weren't quite sure. That those two products went together, um, the gummy packaging really popped and caught my eye and it was very clean with its ingredients, um, but I'm a little worried about the pouch format for the gummies. Um, they were all kind of stuck together when we got to them, so I don't know if it was just a shipping issue, but I think that would be one thing kind of holding the brand back.

Speaker 1 [04:23] Matt, are you a regular CBD consumer or casual one? And even if you aren't,

Speaker 5 [04:28] no, not really, um. I didn't appreciate that there, I guess the bees, you know, pollinate this with hemp or CBD as opposed to anything being added. Um, the honey tasted great. I really liked it. Um, it felt more like something in the supplement space. I'd be curious to know where it's having, you know, a lot of traction and how your consumers use it. I could tell this was very functional and premium and quite good, um, so yeah.

Speaker 1 [04:59] And Karen, you know, you get the last word on this, um, in terms of, you know, fitting into the honey aisle or fitting into a different part of the store, I mean, what do you think of this opportunity for this brand?

Speaker 6 [05:13] Is it positioned as hemp only or CBD? Because if it's ingestible CBD it's not allowed in our stores. Um, and I would see it if and when in, um, the vitamin and supplement category probably or maybe the honey near Manuka honey.

Speaker 1 [05:33] All right, good stuff.